There’s a ton of information coming out from a bunch of different sources and it’s difficult to keep track of who’s said what and who has evidence of what. This thread is to keep track of who’s making what claims, who has what evidence, and discussion surrounding those.
For top-level comments, please separate into two categories:
Evidence (videos, facts, circumstantial evidence, etc.) that we can validate, invalidate, or provide supporting sources for
Claims (IDF, Hamas, Western media, etc.) that we can prove or disprove using current evidence
=== 2023-10-19 ===
It’s established fact that Israel was operating aircraft near the hospital, that Israel was striking targets near the hospital, that Israel had indicated that they would strike the hospital, that Israel had striked the hospital in the past, and that Israel had targeted multiple hospital staff in the days leading up to the strike.
It’s currently up to debate, but many indications suggest that Israel’s message has changed multiple times. The initial claim was that the attack was on Hamas operatives within the hospital. The claim afterward was that this was a Hamas misfire (using demonstrably falsified audio evidence).
The videos show that a single large explosion triggered whatever happened, not a sequence of smaller explosions or secondary detonations. The video circulating of a Hamas rocket “misfire” is more indicative of a MANPADS launch given multiple comparable flight paths from other MANPADS. It’s a clear usage of a multi-pulse rocket motor, something Hamas does not have domestic capability for but does have access to through Iranian MANPADS. An Iranian Misagh-2 fires a missile with less than 2kg of explosives and less than 20kg of total weight.
At this stage, my most likely conclusion is that the damage was the result of an airburst bomb.
Final edit: I do not think the two competing videos depict the same event. Still weird how such similar events happened exactly an hour apart. This means that the sequence of events I outlined are a mishmash of two separate things. I don’t think the video showing the “flares” is from the hospital bombing.
Reposting my comment in the mega. Let me know if you want this broken into parts, but I think the succession of events are important to provide context which is always missing from short clips:
From the videos we have seen it appears that several events happened in quick succession.
This video from the IDF released last night (which had been circulating before), shows 2, 3, 5, and 6, and afterwards a rocket salvo which I am not sure is actually 1 due to other footage: https://nitter.net/IDF/status/1714403025136017784, this is a similar video to what was shown on AJ Arabic, though without the ending: https://nitter.net/IDF/status/1714442617201586220
Some said this video was reversed, but I do not see any evidence of that, but I also fail to see how this shows a misfired rocket hitting a hospital. Whatever that single rocket was, exploded far above in the air.
Then there is this video, which shows 1, 4, and 6. Oddly, I do not see the first smaller explosion here, and what happens in the sky is clearly not 3 as clearly depicted in the first video. The idea that it is flares from an aircraft would make sense. Also note how the salvo is heading away from the hospital: https://streamable.com/hchxwx
Now here’s a kicker. The video Israel’s twitter posted today is from the same location as the above video (see the building at the edge of the frame), but cropped: https://nitter.net/Israel/status/1714593881801601043
Here, the salvo is coming from the other side of the frame, making it look like it is heading towards the hospital. Looking at the two videos together, it appears that one of these videos has been altered. I am leaning towards the second being the altered video as it is heavily cropped and worse quality than the first.
My own suspicion is that Israel knew Gaza would be firing a salvo, and timed/planned a strike so it could plausibly blame Gaza for killing its own civilians. If we look at how this shapes the media narrative, it has directed attention away from the daily bombings of civilians and infrastructure into a debate about who bombed the hospital. It has allowed Israel to claim that it would never strike a hospital, even though they have been doing that all week, and “confirming” that Gaza launches rockets with civilian infrastructure as a shield. This redirects anger back at Hamas and Gaza shoring up support that Israel seemed to be losing in MSM narratives due to, quite frankly, some of the worst and most sustained war crimes that have happened in my lifetime.
Any thoughts?
edit: link to the post and comments as it has been edited and others have added: https://hexbear.net/comment/4121650
Thanks! I think it’s fine leaving them in a single comment.
The main thing disproving Israel’s claim is that Hamas is clearly firing rockets away from the hospital.
I agree that this is definitely turning attention away from the daily bombings (and the convoy bombings, and the school bombings…) But at this point I’m just trying to figure out what actually happened.
Yeah, same. I think between the IDF video from last night and the competing videos released today, the event is depicted as best it can. Very hard to tell what exactly happened due to how dark it is, and how poor the video quality is.
I just keep repeating ‘this was the 5th hospital struck so far’, and pretty much stop there. The source was (perhaps inadvertently) the NYT showing a graphic map of Gaza with approx locations of Israeli attacks, and a list of targets struck by type. Four hospitals on that list, before this one. I need verifiable physical evidence evaluated by credible independent parties for any claim of responsibility to be taken seriously.
Having a hard time finding it, but I think they’ve hit more than 5 at this point. It was 15 iirc