Militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets toward Israel and towards Al-Ahli hospital 44 seconds before an explosion there that killed at least 100 people, according to a visual analysis conducted by the Washington Post.
Video Analysis and Visual Evidence
The newspaper was able to identify the location of the rocket launches near the hospital in Gaza City based on footage obtained from the Israeli television channel Keshet 12 News. The analysis showed that the rockets from this barrage were capable of reaching the hospital in time for the explosion to occur.
Visual Evidence Analysis and Experts
Presenting video analyses and visual evidence, along with expert reviews of images from the explosion site, offers indirect evidence that could support Israel’s and the U.S. government’s claim that a stray rocket fired by an armed Palestinian group was responsible for the explosion on October 17.
Lack of Direct Visual Evidence
At the same time, there was no visual evidence showing a rocket striking the hospital grounds, and the evidence reviewed by the newspaper does not rule out the possibility that an invisible rocket fired from another location could have hit the hospital grounds.
Damage Analysis
Experts in munitions confirmed that the damage at the hospital is consistent with a rocket strike. They stated it is not consistent with an airstrike, which would have caused much greater damage, or an artillery strike, which would have left large shrapnel and likely would not have caused the huge fireball seen in the videos.
Shared Al Jazeera Video
The newspaper found that the video broadcasted by Al Jazeera and cited by both the Israeli and U.S. governments as evidence of a failed rocket landing on hospital grounds actually shows a rocket launch from several miles away in Israel, near the Iron Dome missile defense battery. Experts noted that the widely circulated video likely shows an intercepted rocket from the Iron Dome colliding with a rocket more than three miles from the hospital and may not be related to the hospital explosion.
Comment from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence
A spokesperson for the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the specific findings that the newspaper uncovered, including the possible rocket launch site inside Israel. He stated that they have “high confidence” that the hospital explosion was caused by a rocket fired by “Palestinian militants,” based on intercepted phone calls, damage analysis at the hospital, and four publicly available videos. He noted that the video broadcast by Al Jazeera was one of the four videos they relied upon, but they did not share the other videos.
Lack of Direct Evidence
The lack of direct evidence has made it difficult to definitively prove who launched the projectile that exploded at Al-Ahli hospital and highlights the limitations of remote investigation attempts in war incidents in conflict areas without access to the direct site.
The Hospital Explosion and Its Aftermath
Hamas accused Israeli forces of conducting an airstrike on the hospital, while Israeli forces claimed it was the result of a “misfired” rocket launched by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed group. The Gaza health ministry stated that 471 people were killed, while an unclassified intelligence assessment stated that the fatality count was “likely on the lower end of the range of 100 to 300 people.”
Errant Rockets
Rockets launched from Gaza often suffer malfunctions. Israeli forces stated last week that Palestinian armed groups have launched more than 6,900 rockets toward Israel since the onset of the current conflict, with at least 550 rockets failing to detonate properly. The Israeli army spokesperson declined to comment on whether any ordnance classified as a rocket has been used since the start of the war.
Consequences and International Pressures
Raised
The hospital explosion sparked widespread anger in the Middle East, following Hamas’s invasion on October 7, which Israel said resulted in the deaths of 1,400 people and injured 5,400 others. The invasion led to a campaign of Israeli strikes in Gaza that killed more than 7,028 people and injured over 18,400, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority canceled diplomatic meetings with President Biden following the hospital disaster, and protesters took to the streets in several countries to express their anger towards Israel and the United States over the casualties.
Foreign journalists not allowed entry
Israel and Egypt, which have imposed an effective blockade on Gaza for more than 16 years, have not allowed foreign journalists into Gaza since the latest war began, making it difficult to directly assess the site of the explosion. Palestinian journalists managed to access the hospital grounds and take photos the day after the strike, but none of those photos showed clear evidence of weapon remnants, a critical part of such investigations. Hamas told the newspaper it had remnants and that they “will be presented to the world soon,” but also told other news agencies that nothing remained of the projectile that hit the hospital.
Rocket barrage
The rocket barrage from Gaza intensified after 6:59 PM local time. It immediately attracted attention from those trying to assign blame for the hospital explosion. Keshet 12 News aired a few seconds of its footage from a balcony in the Israeli town of Netivot showing the launch. The channel provided a 94-second video that includes the entire barrage.
The explosion
Video shot from a building located about 500 feet southeast of the hospital captured a high-pitched scream of a projectile passing rapidly before the explosion. The newspaper sent this video and another showing the moment of the explosion to sound experts for review. Rob Maher, a professor at Montana State University, said the increasing frequency produced by the incoming projectile indicates it is accelerating. He said the acceleration could mean the projectile was falling vertically, gaining speed from gravity, adding that this would be more consistent with a malfunctioning rocket descending from the sky, according to audio analysis, rather than a body moving horizontally.
Repercussions
The explosion caused a massive fire in the hospital courtyard, where hundreds of people were seeking shelter in hopes of avoiding airstrikes. Video captured immediately after the explosion showed many bodies scattered across the courtyard.
Repercussions and international pressures
Images show burned vehicles in the hospital parking lot, including one flipped onto its roof.
Repercussions and international pressures
Images show members of the Palestinian police’s bomb disposal unit inspecting a crater caused by the explosion that night. The morning after the strike, Palestinian journalists and civilians began posting videos and photos of the scene. No remnants of the projectile that caused the explosion appeared in those photos.
Repercussions and international pressures
Images show more than ten burned vehicles, including one that was overturned, in the hospital parking lot.
Repercussions and international pressures
Images show that surrounding buildings experienced relatively minor damage, including shattered windows and fallen tiles from roofs.
Repercussions and international pressures
One image shows a small crater about three feet wide, located in the parking lot between two grassy areas where civilians had taken shelter. A splash-pattern-like fragmentation pattern extends from the crater in one direction, but experts could not agree on its significance.
Repercussions and international pressures
Pieces of the nearby metal and concrete fence were broken and bent, and the nearby trees appeared to have been scorched.
RepercussionsInternational Pressures
More than half a dozen experts who reviewed the scene’s imagery confirmed that the absence of significant damage from the explosion, such as building collapses, along with the small size and shape of the crater, rules out the possibility of an airstrike like those carried out by Israel in other parts of Gaza since October 7.
Interpretation of the Shared Video
The Israeli and American governments, along with some media outlets, referenced a video filmed and broadcast by Al Jazeera on the night of the explosion, which initially appears to show a possible rocket flying near the hospital and exploding in the air seconds before the hospital blast. The Israeli military cited the video in multiple interviews. U.S. intelligence officials stated that their analysts also relied on this video.
Interpretation of the Shared Video
However, after analyzing several videos, the newspaper found that the projectile mentioned was actually launched from a location inside Israel near a potential site for the “Iron Dome” air defense battery, and experts suggested it might have been an interceptor missile unrelated to the hospital explosion.
Interpretation of the Shared Video
About 15 seconds after its launch, and after changing direction and veering westward, the projectile originating from the vicinity of the suspected Iron Dome site exploded in the air.
Interpretation of the Shared Video
Five experts who reviewed the videos confirmed that the projectile appears to be a missile intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome system, based on its behavior and launch location.
Interpretation of the Shared Video
Unlike unguided rockets fired by Palestinian armed groups that follow ballistic paths, the erratic trajectory of the missile before the explosion shows a “clear non-ballistic trajectory expected from a missile intercepted by the Iron Dome,” according to Dalanuki-Feris.
Interpretation of the Shared Video
However, Justin Bronk, a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in Britain, may interpret the video differently, stating in an email that it shows “one visible rocket engine exhibiting a sudden and violent change in trajectory consistent with control surface failure, followed by a spray of sparks consistent with structural disintegration in flight after a few seconds.”
Interpretation of the Shared Video
A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence noted that there are several videos showing “a missile or rocket experiencing potential flight failure approximately 10 seconds after launch” and that the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital shortly thereafter was “definitely the falling warhead.” The spokesperson did not specify the exact location of the potential projectile in Gaza.
Lack of Connection Between the Explosions
The five experts agreed that there is no evidence linking the possible interception to the hospital explosion and that the two events may not be related at all.
Implications and International Pressures
The explosion and fireball at the hospital occurred seven seconds after the apparent intercepting missile exploded in the air. The newspaper identified the potential interception’s location to a point about a mile inside Israeli territory and roughly 3.5 miles east of the hospital.
Insufficient Time to Affect the Hospital
The objects that exploded at the interception point did not have sufficient time to affect the hospital during the seven seconds between the airborne explosion and the distant hospital blast, according to Schiller. Any object at the airborne explosion location would have had to travel at speeds exceeding 500 meters per second, a supersonic speed, which is “completely impossible,” Schiller stated, adding that the most likely reason is another missile experiencing a malfunction that “struck the hospital grounds a few seconds after that interception event.”
Experts’ Comments
Shane Harris, Sarah Kallan, Joyce Lee, Dalton Bennett in Washington, and Sarah Dadouch in Beirut contributed to this report.
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