Footage of an Israeli Airstrike on Gaza: A Controversy and a Counterexample against the Hamas-Israel War
Moments after the explosion was reported, Gaza’s health ministry claimed the blast was caused by an Israeli rocket attack and that hundreds of people had died, marking what would be among the deadliest attacks of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, which controls the Palestinian territory of Gaza. In addition to the New York Times running the claim, they also pushed notifications to peoples’ phones with the news that Israeli rockets had killed Palestinians in a hospital in Gaza. Palestinian officials say an Israeli strike on hospitals killed hundreds.
After an explosion in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the Israeli military said that it was caused by a failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that aerial footage, photos and recordings of Hamas members were found in the wake of the blast.
There are many conspiracy theories and claims on social media about who was behind the explosion, according to a researcher with Bellingcat. “Immediately it just became a very confusing situation,” she says. All this footage has conflicting claims.
There was a blast outside the hospital and the displaced Palestinians had fled to a courtyard. The small courtyard had several parked cars and a few grassy patches where people appear to have congregated.
Since Hamas launched attacks that killed more than a thousand Israelis, Israel has launched thousands of air strikes on Gaza. The hospital was hit by Israeli fire on Oct.14, according to the Church and the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The explosion at a hospital as a result of an Israeli aerial bombardment is not a rocket, and the U.S. Department of Defense is monitoring the geolocation of the blast
Several experts in geolocation have shown that the videos show the blast occurring at the hospital and NPR independently was able to verify those geolocations.
On Wednesday, U.S. officials said they were looking closely at an explosion next to the hospital in its courtyard or parking lot, to see if that was responsible for some or much of the loss of life. There is a possibility that a rocket hit the parking lot near the hospital, but US officials are trying to learn more.
According to Dr. Naim, he was in the operating room at the time of the explosion. Upon hearing the blast, he rushed outside to find horrific injuries to the people in the courtyard, including amputated limbs and vascular injuries, he said. “Some of them died in our hands,” he said.
Video footage and extent of the destruction showed that the blast was caused by an Israeli aerial bombardment, according to the group.
It’s inconsistent with the types of bombs and shells used by Israeli troops that the hospital has no damage from both bombs and shells.
State of the Art in the Gaza Blast: Israeli and United States Response to Israeli and Israeli Counter-Offensives on Twitter, Facebook and Twitter
Death estimates vary widely, but are believed to be in the hundreds. The extreme high end of war crimes is what Garlasco thinks the death toll would be. He said that it was plausible since many Palestinians have left their homes to seek refuge in a very small number of supposedly safe locations.
News organizations quickly changed their headline in order to reflect the Israeli counter-offensive. The New York Times updated its headline to reflect the 500 dead in the blast at the Gaza hospital.
There are competing claims that have not been verified. The New York Times is assessing the various accounts through a combination of on- the-ground interviews and analysis of photos, video footage and other evidence.
The Israeli military said that there had been an increase in casualties. The Gazan health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said later on Wednesday that 471 people had been killed and hundreds more injured.
The figures could not be independently verified, and video footage verified by the New York Times showed scores of bodies strewn across the courtyard.
“Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity and open-source video and images of the incident,” she said, adding that the United States was continuing to collect information.
American officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said that multiple strands of early intelligence, including infrared satellite data, show a launch of a rocket or missile from Palestinian fighter positions within Gaza. They cautioned that the analysis was in its initial stages.
The Hamas Medical Center in Gaza is not a military target: Defense of the Joint Operation “Defensive Strike” on the Gazan Air Force
Musab Al-Breim, a spokesman for the group, told The Times that the group’s weapon capacity was very limited.
The military wing of the group posted a message on Telegram at 7 pm that night saying it had fired a wave of rockets at Israel.
He acknowledged that errant rockets from the military wing had killed Palestinians in the past. “We have made mistakes, I am not going to deny it,” he said. “However, not mistakes of this size.”
According to Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, one of the rockets fell on a parking lot outside the hospital after being fired by the Palestinian group.
He showed an aerial image that he said was taken from a military drone. In the image, he said, there was no evidence of a crater that would have been caused by an Israeli missile.
Admiral Hagari dismissed suggestions that the strike was caused by an errant Israeli air defense interceptor; he said Israel does not fire air defense missiles into Gazan airspace.
The admiral played a recording of what he said was a wiretapped conversation between two Hamas members, in which one speaker says the damage was caused by a rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from a cemetery near the hospital. The conversation has not been verified by The Times.
At least three times in the last few days, the Israel military called the hospital managers and asked the patients and staff to leave the compound, according to the archbishop.
Archbishop Naoum said the warnings were particular to the hospital, and not part of Israel’s wider push to encourage civilians to leave northern Gaza for the territory’s south.
Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler, an Israeli military spokesman, said the calls to the hospital were part of a wider campaign to urge civilians to leave northern Gaza ahead of an expected Israeli invasion. The hospital was not a military target according to Colonel Shefler.
The Blast of the Bethe-Adel Hospital: What has the American Government Learned about the Detection and Response to the Report?
The reporting was put together by Emmabubola, Iyad Abuheweila, Aaron Boxerman, Patrick Kingsley, Haley Mills, Yousur Al-Hlou, and Peter Baker.
There is a lot of pressure to get a video out there, and it is like a perfect storm for Chaos, according to a senior researcher at Bellingcat.
U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the latest information, said the death toll was likely at the low end of that estimate. But even if it is revised downward further, officials emphasized that the blast had still caused a significant loss of life. The US didn’t say what intelligence led them to their estimated death toll.
The war between Israel and Hamas has given rise to a lot of misleading and false online information, which is difficult to discern from what is actually happening on the ground.
The White House and Congress were informed by the intelligence agencies that there was little damage to the hospital after the blast and there was no impact on the hospital. Two structures near the main hospital took minor damage to their roofs, but remained intact.