—BRIEFING—
What struck Gaza hospital?
Evidence points to mainstream interpretation being wrong
Israel confirms 10,000 civilians killed in Gaza
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Visual report: The Fate of Hostages
22 Dec 2023
On October 17 a blast hit the site of al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing and injuring civilians sheltering in its courtyard.
It followed 10 days of intensive bombardment of the Gaza Strip by Israel Defense Forces (IDF), beginning after an estimated 1,200 civilians were murdered and over 200 taken hostage in a terror attack on Israel conducted by Hamas, an organisation governing the Gaza Strip.
Post factum independently reviewed international press coverage of the event, revealing widespread inconsistencies and errors of judgement.
We find that mainstream understanding of the events, that a malfunctioned rocket caused the blast, is undermined by evidence pointing towards it being an Iron Dome interceptor-missile launched from Israel.
This edition analyses the two credible and conflicting interpretations of available evidence.
Footage: al-Ahli Hospital explosion from a bystander's phone
The majority of news publications opened their coverage with headlines leaning towards Israeli airstrike as the cause of explosion, with hundreds of civilian casualties reported.
While Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) officials were cited as source of news, the phrasing is consistent with quoting credible sources which misled readers into overestimating the credibility of this information.
By October 17 the IDF reported striking hundreds of targets in Gaza daily, and Gaza Health Ministry already reported thousands of civilian casualties in total. Three days before, the hospital building was hit by a single Israeli non-explosive illumination shell, with no casualties.
"The missile hit the hospital not long after dark. You can hear the impact. The explosion destroyed al-Ahli Hospital. It was already damaged from a smaller attack at the weekend. The building was flattened."
- BBC international editor Jeremy Bowen, on 'News At Ten'
"It’s hard to see what else this could be really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes."
- BBC reporter during live TV coverage of al-Ahli explosion
BBC have faced particular criticism for their coverage and later issued a series of corrections, as did other media, including The New York Times.
"The early versions of the coverage - and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels - relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified."
- The New York Times, October 18
Within an hour of first news of hospital explosion, mass protests sparked across the Middle East, putting local governments under political pressure.
Al-Ahli Hospital blast remained front page news for many days and is the most searched term on Google related to Gaza since the start of the war.
Facing mounting outrage, IDF issued a statement blaming the explosion on a misfired rocket launched from Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants.
"The Israeli military said an initial investigation suggested the explosion was caused by a failed Hamas rocket launch, before saying it was the result of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket barrage. Islamic Jihad denied the Israeli allegation, and the scale of the blast appeared to be outside either of the militant groups’ capabilities"
- Guardian live blog, October 18 04:24 BST
We note that many hours after the explosion, credible outlets have continued to provide inaccurate and conflicting information on the event, exemplified by the above quote from The Guardian, still online at the time of publication, which is incorrect in both the assessment of the militant groups' capabilities and the claimed cause attribution by the IDF.
US President Joe Biden arrived in Israel the following morning to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyanu, as already scheduled.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has cancelled his meeting with Biden in Jordan later that week following the public outrage by alleged Israeli strike on the hospital.
"Our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday"
- US National Security Council statement, October 18
"I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there’s a lot of people out there who’re not sure. So we have to overcome a lot of things"
- Joe Biden to Benjamin Netanyahu, October 18
Proper assessment of the evidence reveals a much more nuanced understanding of the events of October 17.
Image: IDF spokesperson, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, pointing to a screenshot of Al Jazeera footage claiming to show misfired Islamic Jihad rocket
Footage: supposed malfunction of the suspected rocket and blasts on the ground.
Source: Al Jazeera live feed, Oct 17
Footage: close-up of explosion of the alleged Palestinian Jihad rocket, slowed.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Oct 22
There are two conflicting interpretations that are both supported by available evidence.
Interpretation 1, adopted by Israel itself, as well as US intelligence and a range of international media (see opening infographic), suggests that an Islamic Jihad rocket was launched from Eastern Gaza towards Northern Israel before malfunctioning, veering West and exploding seconds later. The rocket's debris then hit the hospital parking lot and remaining fuel caused a fireball explosion, damaging cars, killing and injuring civilians.
This is supported by the visual evidence, which shows a single projectile flash and change directions before exploding in the air visually close to the hospital seconds before the huge blast. The interpretation is also consistent with the remaining evidence. This position could be summed up with this analysis by The Wall Street Journal analysis.
Interpretation 2, however, argues differently. Analysis by independent researchers and The New York Times has located the in-air explosion of the supposed malfunctioned rocket using camera angles and reveled that it took place 2 miles away from the hospital.
Map of camera angles and estimated in-air explosion site.
Source: The New York Times, Oct 24
This mapping, verified by multiple independent analysts, suggests that the projectile, alleged to be a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket, was most likely launched from near Israeli city Nahal Oz.
This suggests the projectile is likely an Iron Dome interceptor-missile, launched in response to the rocket barrage that was fired from Southern Gaza towards Israel minutes earlier.
An Iron Dome launch site is present near Nahal Oz, which is verified by satellite imagery.
This is supported by reports from the IDF that one rocket from the Hamas barrage went stray from the rest and flew toward Nahal Oz.
This analysis does not conclude what the cause of the explosion at the hospital's car park was, but undermines the visual evidence behind the mainstream interpretation of events.
Photo: impact crater at the explosion site.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Oct 22
Other evidence includes images from the blast site, which are inconsistent with a typical Israeli airstrike (using a 2,000-pound bomb) and moderately consistent with a crash of a misfired militant rocket. It does not exclude an Israeli artillery shell or debris from an intercepted rocket as cause of explosion.
Hamas did not publish crucial evidence, such as munition fragments, despite claiming to be in possession of such.
Military analysts estimate that about 15-20% of all rockets launched from Gaza malfunction.
The key disagreement among experts is whether the flashes and explosion of the suspected rocket are consistent with an Iron Dome projectile or a malfunctioned militant-made rocket.
Civilian casualties in Gaza are at the center of both the hospital explosion and wider Israel-Hamas debates.
Initial reports cited up to 500 killed in al-Ahli explosion, quoting Gaza Health Ministry (GHM). US intelligence is currently estimating a figure "at the lower end of 100-300 range".
Major Israeli airstrikes have been reported to cause up to 20 civilian deaths on multiple occasions since October 7.
GHM is subordinate to Hamas, but one of the reasons its reports were seen as credible is the historical accuracy of the civilian death toll reported.
GHM-reported casualties during major hostilities in Gaza of 2008-9, 2014 and 2021 have only deviated from UN estimates by 2.7% on average.
Israeli military officials confirmed in a foreign media briefing that reports of 5,000 Hamas militants killed since October 7 are "more or less right".
Open Institute of Israel research has estimated that 2 civilians are killed by IDF for each militant in this conflict, which is also verified by senior IDF officials.
This suggests that 10,000 civilians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, according to IDF.
On October 7, Hamas-led terrorist attack killed 1,139 people: 695 Israeli and 71 foreign civilians, as well as 373 security forces personnel, according to latest data. This includes 36 children, as young as 10 months.
68 journalists have lost their lives in this conflict, of whom 61 Palestinian, 4 Israeli and 3 Lebanese.
On October 13 an Israeli tank crew fired at a press vehicle killing Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and critically injuring AFP journalist Christina Assi with 5 other press workers wounded.
On December 15, IDF mistakenly killed three hostages, who emerged from a ruined building shirtless and holding a white flag.
These and other instances have caused media to question the procedures of Israeli military on target selection and engagement.
From the editor:
The speed of the news cycle today means we get live reports of the most remote events almost instantly.
Unfortunately, this creates incentives to publish attention-grabbing headlines quicker than the competing media
Because of this, false narratives based on rushed and incomplete information pollute our knowledge of the world events.
Additionally, media and educational institutions have become increasingly politicised, afraid to anger their audiences.
This results in commonplace failure of mainstream news media to present unbiased and accurate information.
At Post factum we always prioritise factual accuracy, clarity and visual excellency over the speed of reporting.
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