It’s difficult to know which one was responsible for the Gaza Hospital explosion
A Palestinian Blast at a Baptist Hospital: Israeli Air-Strike Attacks on the Al-Ahli Synagogue
There was a blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. Within minutes, the information about what had happened was distorted by partisan narratives, and there was a rush to be first to post about the blast. Add in mainstream media outlets parroting official statements without verifying their veracity, and the result was a chaotic information environment in which no one was sure what had happened or how.
The Israeli Defense Forces deny that there is an airstrike in relation to the blast. A rocket was launched by a Palestinian group called Islamic Jihad and exploded in the air before falling on the hospital grounds. The U.S. believes Israel is not to blame, based on analysis of “overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information,” a National Security Council spokesperson said Wednesday.
Social media is awash with claims and counterclaims of who was behind the explosion, according to Kolina Koltai, a researcher with the open source investigations group Bellingcat. She says that it became a very confusing situation. You have conflicting claims.
The displaced Palestinians were in a courtyard outside the hospital at the time of the blast. The small courtyard had several parked cars and a few grassy patches where people appear to have congregated.
Since a wave of attacks by Hamas killed more than a thousand Israelis in a twelve day period, Israel has conducted thousands of air strikes on Gaza. According to officials from the Palestine Ministry of Health, the hospital was hit by Israeli fire on October 14.
NPR: Evidence of What Happened at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza (Is It Really an Airstrike?
The videos show the explosion occurring at the hospital, and NPR independently verified that the videos were in fact from the hospital.
A video is on a live broadcast feed from Al Jazeera that appears to show a rocket launch near the hospital. The object seems to break apart over the hospital moments before the blast.
Photos from the following day also appear to show little damage to the hospital buildings, and a relatively small blast zone from the explosion. That damage pattern is inconsistent with a large air-dropped bomb, which would leave a crater and create a shockwave that would damage or destroy surrounding structures, says Marc Garlasco, a former targeting officer for the U.S. military who now works for PAX, a Netherlands-based non-profit.
“It’s very clear to me that this is not an airstrike.” Garlasco says. Israeli bombs are designed to create a huge shockwave that propels the shards of metal over a large area.
The lack of damage to the hospital fromisraeli bombs is not consistent with all types of Israeli shells.
Source: Here’s the available evidence of what happened at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza
Israel’s response to the Gaza attack: “We have seen it all, but haven’t seen it” questioned by Garlasco and Toler
Estimates of death vary, but are believed to be in the hundreds. Garlasco, who has investigated war crimes all over the world, says the death toll would be the “extreme high end” of anything he’s ever seen. But he found it plausible, he said, given that so many Palestinian civilians have left their homes to seek refuge in a small number of supposedly safe locations.
There has been a lot of pressure to get videos out there, and it is a perfect storm for chaos.
News organizations changed their headlines to reflect a counterclaim from Israel and pushed out more notifications. The updated headline from The New York Times read: “At least 500 dead in blast at Gaza hospital, Palestinians say.”
In the hours after the attack, @Israel, the official Israeli account on X (formerly Twitter), posted a video it claimed was proof that the explosion was the result of a misguided rocket launched by Islamic Jihad militants. But within minutes, Aric Toler, a former Bellingcat researcher who now works for The New York Times, pointed out that the time stamp on the video showed 8 pm local time, a full hour after the explosion took place.
At least 500 people have been killed in a blast which took place at the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. The blast was caused by a rocket that exploded in the air before falling on the hospital grounds. Palestinian Health Ministry officials said that the hospital was hit by Israeli air strikes on October 14.