AP visual analysis: Rocket from Gaza appeared to go astray, likely caused deadly hospital explosion

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.

downpunxx,
downpunxx avatar

Palestinians lie, and the world blames Jews, then the world targets Jews, and when the truth finally comes out, no one apologizes, the hurt and blood cannot be rescinded, because "The Jews deserved it anyway"

Grant_M,
@Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

Free Gaza from Hamas terrorists

Grant_M,
@Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

These Hamas terrorist freaks don’t care who they murder.

Skkorm,

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?

Dogyote,

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.

Tavarin,
@Tavarin@lemmy.ca avatar

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.

Dogyote,

Guess it just malfunctioned and blew up

assassin_aragorn,

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.

atticus88th,

Maybe it was the jewish lazor defense system that twitter had as a top result for over 24hrs before the hospital explosion.

RememberTheApollo_,

Maybe I missed it - but were any anti-missile devices used that may have damaged the rocket and caused it to go off course?

thoro, (edited )

Opposite conclusions drawn from Al Jazeera, Channel 4, and Forensic Architecture, from just what I’ve seen.

An independent investigation must be allowed.

circuscritic,

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.

assassin_aragorn,

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.

thoro,

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.

assassin_aragorn,

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.

thoro,

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

assassin_aragorn,

Based on what GeoConfirmed said it sounds like the Al Jazeera claim is irrelevant to this specific incident though?

thoro,

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.

assassin_aragorn,

Ohhh, okay I see now. I didn’t realize they were saying it was something else, and not the rocket.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

Pretty sure there have been multiple independent investigations.

hassanmckusick,

Individual pieces have been analyzed by 3rd parties like the fake phone call/audio recording. But overall no, we’re getting different parties takes on the evidence we’ve been presented but we’re not getting any additional evidence because it’s not safe on the ground to investigate.

circuscritic,

I don’t know if that call was fake, but I do agree that it should NOT be used as evidence to support my claim for one simple reason: it hasn’t been verified by the parties involved.

But, we have photographic evidence from both the Israelis and Palestinians that align, which cofirms the accuracy of those pieces of visual evidence. Which is why that is what has been used by the OSINT analysts to draw the conclusion that it was NOT an Israeli muniton, and it was MOST LIKELY a rocket fired from Gaza.

spark947,

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.

Aussiemandeus,
@Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone avatar

I really hope that one day the truth of so many events can come out. Everything is always framed and media lies.

Is hard to know what’s true and what isn’t

afraid_of_zombies,

Nah it never does. People still think that Jesus existed. Just subscribe to whatever preconceived notions you want and gather evidence to support it. Only outrage is real.

Aussiemandeus,
@Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone avatar

Yeah indo like this idea, ignorance truly is bliss and alternative facts are great /s

slumlordthanatos,

…He did exist, there are actual historical records. The question is whether or not Jesus was divine and performing miracles.

afraid_of_zombies,

Oh there are, may I see the contemporary historical records please?

Rengoku,

What a dimwit.

Jesus is an indisputed historical figure.

afraid_of_zombies,

I am disputing him. Would you care to provide evidence for your claim or personally attack me again?

jordanlund, (edited )
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not sure how to break this to you… The first written record of Jesus doesn’t appear until some 70 years after the date of his crucifixion. That’s in the writings of Josephus, but the problem with Josephus is that the copy that survived is from the 4th century, which appears to have been edited by Eusebius, a Christian, inserting the mention of Jesus. Quotations of Josephus prior to Eusebius make no mention of Jesus. Good reading here:

www.jstor.org/stable/43723559

We know people like Pontius Pilate existed because we have documents from the era talking to and about him. There’s nothing remotely similar for Jesus.

I describe it like this, the story goes that Jesus was an amazing figure, speaking to the masses at the sermon on the mount, raising the dead, etc. Why is there no written record of him at the time? No letter from one person to another going “Hey, I just saw this Jesus guy and he’s making a lot of sense!” No Roman records for arrest, trial or execution? And man, those Romans loved their documents.

A modern day equivalent would be having no written record of Elvis until some 70 years after he died, and the only surviving copy of that 70 year document being from another transcriber 400 years after he died. We would still be 24 years away from the first written record of Elvis.

afraid_of_zombies,

It’s amazing how a first century Jewish person would be expressing an idea of the Trinity that wouldn’t come around for another two centuries and that of all his writings he only changed topics like this a single time. Also that people familiar with Christianity and his works just never mention this for 200-300 years.

Imagine a super popular book written in 1723 and only last week someone mentioned what might be the single most important passage. Incredible.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Yup. Part of the problem is that people still think the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John when we know, factually, they weren’t.

slumlordthanatos,

Here.

afraid_of_zombies,

Hmm not seeing any contemporary records in the Wikipedia article, which I am sure you read, why don’t you list specifically what record you are referring to?

slumlordthanatos,

I can lead a horse to water, but I can’t make it drink.

The sources that do exist were shortly after Jesus’ life, and they were not only consistent with each other, but from radically different sources, including Roman, Jewish, Christian, and even Muslim sources. It’s pretty simple to check the sources against one another and see what lines up.

Scholars generally agree that someone named Jesus of Nazareth existed in Palestine in the 1st century AD. Is Jesus the Son of God? Depends on who you ask, but to say that he didn’t exist at all is being willfully ignorant.

afraid_of_zombies,

Instead of a lecture about why I should accept you on faith why not produce the contemporary records?

The sources that do exist were shortly after Jesus’ life

Oh like Paul who didn’t see anything? Oh like the Mark Gospel written fifty years later, with no sources, on a different continent filled up with copy and pasted from Elijah? Oh you mean like Josephus (50 years after the supposed events) with two passages one a forgery and the other possibly talking about someone else? Oh you mean Tacticus who was a century later and related hearsay without consulting a single Roman record?

How about everyone else, how about the hundreds of letters we have from that area and time period that never once mention any of the events? How about people documenting Messiah figures during the first century not seeing anyone? How about the total lack of records of Nazareth even existing in that century, the entire Joseph family missing from records, all relics missing, the tomb missing, the trial records missing?

Now show me a CONTEMPORARY record not what some Muslim said in Saudi Arabia 9 centuries later.

slumlordthanatos,

I did. It seems your definition of “contemporary” is different from mine.

Whatever. No point in arguing with the atheist circlejerk; it’s sad how the good points you have get ruined by your inability to do research and understand context.

afraid_of_zombies,

Nope. Contemporary is not 90 years later by any definition. Me writing an article this week about fashion trends of 1923 should not be titled “contemporary fall fashion”.

Tavarin,
@Tavarin@lemmy.ca avatar

were shortly after Jesus’ life

So not contemporary to Jesus?

slumlordthanatos,

“Contemporary” is the period of time where there would be people living who had experienced these events, even if the historian him/herself hadn’t lived to see them.

So…yes, still contemporary.

Tavarin,
@Tavarin@lemmy.ca avatar

But the people supposedly writing about him were not Jesus’ contemporaries. They would not have met him, or seen him, they were writing on behalf of what they say other people claim.

afraid_of_zombies,

That is when they even did that much. The writers of the Gospels liked to alter the text to “improve” it. Luke and Matthew, for example, took out a sentence where Jesus gets a bit angry and yells.

afraid_of_zombies,

Gotcha since the oldest living person right now was born in 1907 that means that everything from March 3rd, 1907 and back is ancient while everything after that date gets squished together ad contemporary.

I am a contemporary of Gandhi, Mao, Dr. King, FDR, Stalin, Churchill, Reagan, Armstrong, Cumae, the Lindenberg baby, Thomss Edison, Einstein, and Aldrin.

I like how useless this definition you invented for yourself to “win” an internet argument is. Now if you excuse me I just got a notice of an important telegram, it seems that Kaiser is up to his old tricks again and if I don’t help us land a man on the moon the Frye Festival will be a complete disaster. Here is a bitcoin for your trouble, you can use it to buy a piece of mutton with some New Coke.

PsychedSy,

You’re gonna have to explain what contemporary means.

afraid_of_zombies,

At the time. Not a 90 year later hearsay account that goes through a 1000 years of monks “correcting” it.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

The news media always engages in a race to be first, never a race to be right.

So when there’s some horriffic event, just assume a lot of the first reporting is wrong. It’s not done out of outright malice (in MOST cases), it’s carelessness.

snooggums,
snooggums avatar

Or just pay attention to who the news is using as a source. When they write "Hamas says X" and "IDF says Y" they are not reporting wrong, they are just passing along who is saying what. You shouldn't think the news is picking sides u less it is obvious that they are leaving out a ton of context, like how western media is so focused on who fired the missile and not the other thousands of deaths around that one event.

ApexHunter,

The evidence available makes it pretty clear that the hospital was not /targeted/. That makes the incident a tragic accident, not a deliberate overt act – regardless of who is ultimately responsible.

markr,

At the time of this event Israel had bombed 4 other hospitals. That doesn’t prove Israel did this, but it does address the ‘they would never do this’ argument.

ApexHunter,

You are welcome to keep your raging hate boner. You just can’t use THIS incident to feed it.

markr,

The source of the data on other hospitals attacked was the NYT, an outfit not exactly known for its anti-Israel bias.

I’ll remain skeptical regarding this incident as to who did it.

Thanks for your intelligent response.

burchalka,

Note what this event was actually - a barrage of rockets sent towards regular Israeli cities and towns with the intent of harming civilians. Not military bases, or IDF infrastructure. Add the fact that up to 20% of these missiles land on Gaza’s territory, and their casualties are registered as caused by IDF.

gmtom,

They don’t exactly “target” civilians in that they don’t target anything because the rockets are too primitive.

And if we are taking the civilian deaths because these rockets as a deliberate act then we would logically have to do the same for every other actor in every other war that killed civilians because they didn’t have guided munitions.

burchalka,

don’t target anything because the rockets are too primitive. So they’re to be treated like “a bit dangerous fireworks”? The fact they’re primed and sent towards regular Israeli cities - shows that the intent is to kill as many people as possible. The fact that Israeli civilian death count is much lower is only due to superior air alert and defense systems, otherwise the numbers would be much higher.

gmtom,

So you apply similar logic to all wars? Or does it only count when brown people do it?

Cleverdawny,

It was one of the islamist groups. Israel doesn’t use that kind of missile.

FuglyDuck,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

I expect this is the likely answer.

But here’s the daily dose of skepticism warranted by the sheer amount of misinformation- both intentional propaganda and kneejerk reactionaries:

That the IDF might not normally use rockets or similar weapons…. Doesn’t mean they don’t have them (from captured stockpiles, for example,)

If asked, my answer is always going to be prefaced with… the only people who really knows for sure are the guys that launched it; and any one who says with certainty “it was XYZ!” Are probably best given an eyebrow raise.

Which. Does it really matter who did it, at this point? This attack barely moves the needle on civilian deaths caused by the Israeli bombardment… or Hamas or any other armed group.

IMO Any one who is not calling for a cease fire, or at least talks… is not on the right side here- and both the IDF and Hamas are on the wrong side.

Spzi,

Which. Does it really matter who did it, at this point?

Yes, if alone for the insane amount of times Israel was found guilty in titles posting about this on the internet, and Lemmy.

Maybe we could say it does not matter now if it did not matter then. But it seemed to matter a lot.

Apart from that, correcting misinformation for truth is always worth it.

Cleverdawny,

Does it really matter who did it, at this point?

Yes. The truth should matter.

Any one who is not calling for a cease fire

I don’t think a ceasefire is going to happen until something happens to the people who started this war.

FuglyDuck,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

the truth should matter

So you’re going to talk about all the other civilians being slaughtered by IDF, right? You get, that’s my point, right? This conflict is killing innocents and it’s both sides killing innocents.

My point is that “it wasn’t Israeli forces that did this” doesn’t absolve Israeli forces from criticism or condemnation when they’re definitely killing civilians.

Which, leads to the second contention- that a cease fire won’t do anything…

what cease fores will do …it’ll stop the creation of more terrorists. Maybe create a road map to peace.

You have to start somewhere. You can’t just keep killing terrorists until there are no more terrorists; the US discovered that the hard way after 9/11;

And let’s be honest and truthful; as bad and awful as Hamas is, the oppression imposed created the environment for them to exist. Am enviroment doubled and tripled down by the people presently in control… and a party that intentionally sabotaged the peace to retain and gain power by indirectly supporting … Hamas.

paintbucketholder,

what cease fores will do …it’ll stop the creation of more terrorists. Maybe create a road map to peace.

There have been several ceasefires in place between Hamas and Israel in the last 17 years since Hamas seized power in Gaza, and arguably none of them stopped the creation of new terrorists.

And let’s be honest and truthful; as bad and awful as Hamas is, the oppression imposed created the environment for them to exist.

Hamas is a terrorist organization that oppresses and murderes Palestinians. The first thing they did when Israel deoccupied Gaza was to seize power from Fatah, murder Fatah members, and suspend elections.

They purposefully murdered Israeli civilians when they could have targeted military targets. They purposefully place terrorist installations next to civilian places like hospitals, places of worship, etc. in the Gaza strip.

There’s a lot of blame on Israel for propping up Hamas in a belief that they would be less violent than Fatah, but there’s also a point where you have to admit that people who decide that they want to commit terrorism have some agency of their own, and that not even terrorist act committed by Hamas can be squarely blamed on Israel.

assassin_aragorn,

My point is that “it wasn’t Israeli forces that did this” doesn’t absolve Israeli forces from criticism or condemnation when they’re definitely killing civilians.

Of course, I completely agree. But it is noteworthy if the damage is caused by an errant missile, because it underscores a very important point – it isn’t just Israel that’s killing Palestinians. Hamas and affiliated groups are also killing Palestinians without a care. This conflict really needs to be separated from the Palestinian civilians, because the two warring parties are both killing them.

Cleverdawny,

My point is that “it wasn’t Israeli forces that did this” doesn’t absolve Israeli forces from criticism or condemnation when they’re definitely killing civilians.

Shit happens in a war. Hamas shouldn’t have started a war.

As to wanting a ceasefire, ask Hamas to surrender, and then the firing will cease.

chunkystyles,

the people who started this war.

Their name is Benjamin Netanyahu.

Cleverdawny,

That’s pretty clearly not the case. Netanyahu is a corrupt moron who didn’t do enough to stop Hamas, but Hamas is ultimately responsible for their own actions, and those actions started this war.

FuglyDuck,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

alright. Now look at what Netanyahu did.

multiple sources to just, you know… make it obvious… Ol’ Netty supported hamas to destabilize and fracture the PA- explicitly to avoid having a viable Palestinian state. Before Netty came to power in the 90’s they were almost there. Likud, as a party has never been about peace since before the State of Israel was actually a thing.

haaretz.com/…/0000018b-47d9-d242-abef-57ff1be9000…
timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-…
telegraph.co.uk/…/how-benjamin-netanyahu-empowere…
washingtonpost.com/…/how-israel-helped-create-ham…

So. Yeah. Lets talk about who shares guilt in this clusterfuck. but yes. Lets blame this entire war on Hamas.

Cleverdawny,

Yes, it’s entirely Hamas’s fault, because they are adults, not children, and are responsible for their own actions. Criticism of Netanyahu for prior relationships his government had with Hamas is justifiable and reasonable, but at the end of the day, if someone breaks into a home and rapes and murders the inhabitants, they’re responsible for what they did.

hassanmckusick,

only if you excuse the apartheid the Palestinians are living through

Tavarin,
@Tavarin@lemmy.ca avatar

The Palestinians were attacking Israel long before the current apartheid.

Cleverdawny,

Sometimes, when you start a war and lose, things get worse for you. If the Palestinians focused on building their country up rather than starting wars intent on genicide, maybe they’d have decent living conditions by now.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

That was the best explanation I saw, essentially if it had been an Israeli attack it would have been an order of magnitude worse.

BB69,

No majority will ever believe whatever is labeled as the truth.

One side believes Hamas/Palestine are freedom fighters who would never harm their own and Israel is trying to genocide

The other thinks that Israel would never harm a civilian and would never make a mistake or purposely target a high risk target.

We’ve likely already seen the truth. It’s just a matter of believing it

roguetrick,

There's plenty of folks that think the both Likud and Hamas want genocide.

0Xero0,
@0Xero0@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Spzi,

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.

ApexHunter,

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.

photonic_sorcerer,
@photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Oh, great. Good on you for taking inspiration from your favorite conspiracy theory to feed your next one!

pennomi,

Have you considered the idea that aliens took advantage of the chaos to blow up that building without raising suspicion?

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