Shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, a volley of rockets lit up the darkened sky over Gaza. Videos analyzed by The Associated Press show one veering off course, breaking up in the air before crashing to the ground.
Seconds later, the videos show a large explosion in the same area – the site of Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital.
Who is to blame for the fiery explosion has set off intense debate and finger pointing between the Israeli government and Palestinian militants, further escalating tensions in their two week-long war.
Opposite conclusions drawn from Al Jazeera, Channel 4, and Forensic Architecture, from just what I’ve seen.
An independent investigation must be allowed.
There are also scientists who have reviewed the data and are certain that anthropogenic global warming isn’t real. How much weight should we give their views?
All OSINT analysis has shown two things:
The damage was NOT caused by Israeli air dropped munition.
The damage was MOST LIKELY caused by an errant rocket landing in the parking lot, having it’s propellent burn off, and ignite the fuel in the neabry cars.
My personal view is that Israel is DEFINITELY capable and willing to bomb a hospital if there was a high value target, so I’m not influenced by inability to recognize the war crimes Israel has, is, and will continue to commit. But this isn’t one of them.
I also think it’s a mistake to continue pretending that it was Israel, because it distracts from very real war crimes they are actively engaging during this conflict, such as collective punishment and bombing civilian buildings and infrastructure, all while Hamas is mostly safe and secure in their tunnel network.
Pretty sure there have been multiple independent investigations.
Al Jazeera doesn’t contradict it. They say Israel’s story is bullshit, but they argue the evidence is consistent with a rocket fired from Gaza being intercepted by the iron dome.
Their analysis agrees that the explosion was caused by a missile fired from within Gaza failing – they just argue that the reason is interception by Israel’s missile defense system, and not an inherent flaw in the rocket.
From what I saw, Al Jazeera shows multiple explosions from Israeli air strikes “targeting the area near the hospital” around the time before the explosion, rockets being fired from Gaza and then intercepted by the Iron Dome, and then concludes their footage shows the rocket in question being intercepted (due to similarities with the other captured interceptions) and “complete destroyed” based on their analysis and video.
They conclude there is no evidence that the explosion of said rocket is tied to the explosion at the hospital, and in fact, they seem to say that rocket was “completely destroyed” when intercepted.
The only thing I’m seeing from the AP here to contradict that conclusion is one person basically saying “uh typically rockets aren’t intercepted above Gaza” but noting it’s technically not impossible. Otherwise, AP is saying the rocket in question and the explosion are tied.
I guess it depends on whether Al Jazeera actually captured those rockets being intercepted. I’m not sure what else it would be unless now there’s an argument that all those rockets on their video feed also malfunctioned or are something else.
I thought forensic evidence had confirmed it was one explosion? If there were multiple, that should be reflected in the blast crater. I’m not going to pretend that I know what it would look like though.
The other strikes they point out are not at the hospital but “in the area”. I guess they are listing a chain of events and noting that Israeli strikes were occurring in the area around the time of the incident.
Everything else about their analysis has to do with potential interception.
GeoConfirmed just posted this, arguing that the rocket was intercepted and the mid air explosion too far away to be related to the hospital.
It looks like a lot of the OSINT crowd are now parroting the Al Jazeera claim if I am reading this correctly
Based on what GeoConfirmed said it sounds like the Al Jazeera claim is irrelevant to this specific incident though?
That’s what Al Jazeera’s claim was. Irrelevance and lack of causal link between the two explosions. Previously, the videos were being used to determine a link and to show a “misfire” leading to the explosion at the hospital, such as in this AP analysis. Now the OSINT groups seem to be saying it is unlikely the munition/rocket can be seen on video.
Now, the narrative is pivoting to a lack of munitions material proving Israeli munitions were used, crater analysis, and arguments about whether or not an air burst explosion could have been involved.
Ohhh, okay I see now. I didn’t realize they were saying it was something else, and not the rocket.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to get this until the fighting stops, and even then Israel and Hamas will probably seek to limit access.
These Hamas terrorist freaks don’t care who they murder.
Free Gaza from Hamas terrorists
Maybe I missed it - but were any anti-missile devices used that may have damaged the rocket and caused it to go off course?
Shouldn’t we stop arguing about this, considering Israel immediately claimed credit for said bombing, before deleting their tweets and changing their tone about it?
I posted the Al Jazeera video analysis yesterday. The conclusions of both videos don’t seem entirely contradictory. I find AP’s analysis as credible as Al Jazeera’s, although it did look like Al Jazeera was correct when they showed that the missile in question was hit by an Iron Dome missile. Regardless, if that was the case, I wouldn’t fault the IDF for shooting down a missile over Gaza that was destined for Israeli territory. Also possible the missile just exploded by itself. Either way, seems so unlikely the warhead survived either incident and very unlucky the warhead fell where it did.
The iron dome doesn’t target missiles when they are fired, but later on in their ballistic trajectory. It’s unlikely an iron dome missile hit a rocket so soon after launch.
Guess it just malfunctioned and blew up
Their analysis really doesn’t contradict the outcome, it just says the missile failed because of defensive interception vs an inherent issue.
But I’m skeptical of their analysis because it would mean the iron dome has incredible range and incredible response time, to an unrealistic extent.
Maybe it was the jewish lazor defense system that twitter had as a top result for over 24hrs before the hospital explosion.
For a parking lot that was directly hit by a rocket, the cars barely moved and stayed intact more than United 93, the buildings right next to said parking lot stood stronger than the World Trade Center, and I’ve seen potholes bigger than the crater they found.
one veering off course, breaking up in the air before crashing to the ground.
Maybe these are relevant bits. If true, the parking lot was hit by rocket parts, possibly (random speculation) without a functional warhead.
It looks like the warhead went off during flight. The explosion/fireball was most likely from unspent fuel from the the rocket. It definitely wasn’t a high energy explosion, it was more like the “atomize and set fire to gasoline” explosion fx you see in movies.
