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| The Difficulties of 'Free Journalism' | |
| 2023-10-27 | |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. Text taken from an article featured on vott.ru Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics. [ColonelCassad] The video shows the projectile streaking across the dark sky over the Gaza Strip and exploding in mid-air. A few seconds later another explosion is seen on the ground. The video footage became widely cited evidence as Israeli and US officials presented evidence that an errant Palestinian rocket malfunctioned in the sky, fell to the ground and caused a deadly explosion at Al Ahly Arab Hospital in Gaza City. But a detailed visual analysis by The New York Times
The Times' findings do not answer the question of what actually caused the explosion at Al Ahly Arab Hospital or who was responsible. The claim by Israeli and US intelligence agencies that a failed Palestinian missile launch was to blame remains plausible. But the Times' analysis casts doubt on some of the most publicized evidence Israeli officials have used to make their case, and complicates their straightforward case. U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that the agencies believe the video shows a Palestinian rocket launched from Gaza suffering a “catastrophic engine failure” before part of the rocket fell onto hospital grounds. The senior intelligence official said authorities could not rule out new information that would change their assessment, but said they were very confident in their conclusions. The hospital bombing was a searing and controversial episode in the war that began Oct. 7 after Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, invaded Israel. who were taken back to Gaza. Israel responded to the Hamas attack with a relentless artillery and bombing campaign that has killed 5,700 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, while the Israeli military prepares for a ground invasion. Israeli officials and Palestinian militants blame each other for the al-Ahli Arab bombing. Multiple videos collected and analyzed by The Times show militants fired dozens of rockets from southwest of the hospital minutes before the explosion, and a fiery explosion at the hospital consistent with a failed rocket with unspent fuel falling far short of its target. The footage also suggests that an Israeli bombing took place and that two explosions near the hospital can be seen within two minutes of the explosion. Major Nir Dinar, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Times that military forces did not strike “at a distance that could endanger the hospital,” but declined to say how far away the closest strike was. A week after the tragedy at the hospital, much remains in question. The death toll, initially estimated by Hamas at 500 and later lowered to 471, is believed by Western intelligence agencies to be significantly lower, but no figures have been confirmed. The hospital itself was not directly hit; Whatever caused the explosion actually hit the hospital courtyard, where people had gathered for safety, and several parked cars. Moreover, the crater left by the impact was relatively small, a fact Israel relied on when claiming that none of its munitions caused an explosion, and could correspond to a number of different munitions. Hamas did not present Israeli ammunition remains or any physical evidence to support its claim that Israel was responsible. Asked about The Times' findings, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said The Times and U.S. intelligence agencies had different interpretations of the video. Understanding what happened is especially difficult because Israel and Hamas have been shooting at each other since the start of the war. According to video evidence and the hospital's official Facebook page, Israel fired more than 8,000 rounds of ammunition into the Gaza Strip in what was a brutal attack, and even hit Al Ahly Arab Hospital with a flare shell three days earlier. Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to fire deadly rockets at Israel from hidden launch sites inside the Gaza Strip. Palestinian rockets have malfunctioned in the past, with one estimate saying 15 percent of rockets launched by militant groups in Gaza fail. An hour after the explosion in the hospital, an information war began. Hamas immediately blamed Israel for the airstrike, and the Israel Defense Forces soon denied any responsibility and blamed it on a faulty Palestinian rocket. Israeli officials released an account of the Oct. 18 bombing and also released one conversation they said was intercepted between Hamas militants blaming Islamic Jihad for the blast. Israel also provided several other pieces of evidence that have not been made public, including logs of military activity, information obtained from radar systems, other audio intercepts and other video recordings. Meanwhile, Israeli officials have pointed to the Al Jazeera video in media interviews and on social media. The Al Jazeera video was published three times by the Israel Defense Forces on the X site, formerly known as Twitter. In reports, the Israeli military identified the moving aerial object as a "missile aimed at Israel" that "misfired and exploded" almost simultaneously with the explosion at the Al-Ahly Arab hospital. Israeli military officials also directly referred to the munition as a misfired missile that caused the explosion in interviews with CNN and BBC on October 18 and in an interview with India Today on October 19. Numerous media outlets showed the footage, and some cited it as evidence that a Palestinian rocket hit the hospital. But The Times concluded that the rocket in the video was never near the hospital. It was launched from Israel, not the Gaza Strip, and appears to have exploded over the Israel-Gaza border, at least two miles from the hospital. To track the object in the sky to Israeli territory, The Times synchronized the Al Jazeera footage with five other videos filmed at the same time, including footage from the Israeli television channel Channel 12 and security cameras in Tel Aviv. These different videos show the rocket from the north, south, east and west. Using satellite imagery to triangulate the launch point in those videos, The Times determined that the projectile was fired toward Gaza from near the Israeli city of Nahal Oz shortly before the deadly hospital explosion. The results match the conclusions reached by some online researchers. In addition, the video shows that the projectile in the Al Jazeera footage was launched after a Palestinian rocket attack, which, according to Israeli officials, caused the hospital explosion. The video shows that from 18:59 on October 17, Palestinian rockets are fired from two positions southwest and northwest of Al Ahli Arab Hospital. The flames of Palestinian rockets can be seen in the night sky as their engines propel them northeast towards Israel. More than 25 seconds elapse between the last Palestinian rocket and the hospital explosion. The Times could not independently determine the type of projectile fired from Israel, although it was fired from an area known to have an Iron Dome defense system. The Israeli military says it does not fire Iron Dome interceptors into the Gaza Strip, and indeed the missile shown in the video may not have crossed into the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said Iron Dome did not fire at the interceptors at the time or area stated. As the United States says, we believe that this is Hamas and that is enough. An international investigation is not needed. | |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #3 Those clever Juice were able to sweep up and remove all traces of their Zionist Missile™ |
| Posted by: Frank G 2023-10-27 09:54 |
| #2 Thought those were the Hamas tunnel dwellers. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2023-10-27 09:38 |
| #1 Here, in Middle East, we say "Dogs bark, but the caravan keeps going". It's sad that Russians, who out to know better, join with the cannibal Eloi of "Western World". |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2023-10-27 01:35 |