Al-Ahli Hospital Explosion

[queen blade]

I realized I only linked Aric's thread not the article. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html

[covert steppe]

Did you guys get a rough altitude for the explosion?

[lapis geyser]

nothing terribly conclusive

[covert steppe]

Someone here did some dimensional analysis on one of the camera feeds and got something like ~3.4km

Iirc the rocket parts would take ~27s to freefall from that height to the ground. And that's not including wind resistance which would make it even longer!

Just so many holes in the theory that the rocket explosion is the source of the hospital explosion, absolutely insane that it's "the official story".

It'd have to be ~1/4 km in altitude for 7s freefall to fit... Again not including air resistance!

[nova zealot]

Good job Aric. At least NYT didn't join the hall of shame along with AP, WSJ, DRM and the combined US intelligence community

[barren coral]

I got about 4.4km altitude (with a reasonable estimates in the range of 3.9-4.5km), but you can also get the distance (in 3d space) really nicely from the delay in Hamdan's video from the visual mid-air explosion to the the audio of the explosion near the end (https://github.com/sam158209/al-ahli-hospital-blast/#extra-audible-boom-in-hamdan-dahdouhs-video)

[nova zealot]

Yeah, I suspect my 3.4km estimate should be adjusted upwards because I used an very early estimate of the launch site. I think it's funny that AlexanderOliver basically used the same value as me but 30m off, due to rounding. But then remember it was an incredibly imprecise method, so I assume ~500m error anyway (even with correct input) 🙂

[covert steppe]

When the rough window of feasibility wrt freefall is 1/4 km altitude, your margins of error could spit out 1km on the low end and it would STILL rule it out, and that's before air resistance!

[barren coral]

Oh, the Netivot footage shows two rocket launch locations, I missed that

[boreal saddle]

didn't NYT share some "analysis" where the fireball explosion was caused by a single artillery shell, which also mysteriously left no debris whatsoever ("vanished like salt") 😬 😅

[lapis geyser]

Yeah I saw that and thought it was decent -- I'm not going to say precisely that but definitely pretty high up!

[lapis geyser]

Up to us and WaPo to save the day! (I assume they'll do a great job too with their piece, whenever it drops)
But there was good stuff in the other pieces too, though we disagree with the rocket in particular.

[queen blade]

Specifically visual investigations of course

[barren coral]

@lapis geyser "The footage also suggests that Israeli bombardment was taking place and that two explosions near the hospital can be seen within two minutes of it being struck."

I saw two explosions (seemingly in Gaza) at ~20 seconds after the start of the barrage (21 seconds before hospital blast) and 41 seconds after the start of the barrage (5.5 seconds before hospital blast). Are these the two explosions the article refers to or did you find other explosions in Gaza?

[nova zealot]

No? I don't think NYT has shared any analysis before at all. Also, now I certainly regret not starting doing the logging of notable stuff earlier, because I might have missed what you're thinking of.

[lapis geyser]

I think those off the top of my head but would need to check, I've been working for 14 hours straight today haha. We had another video from the south that showed a bit more.

Another thing that I think most of you guys caught on: a lot of footage was actually from 8pm, not 7pm

[queen blade]

Yes I think that was a big part of the discussion here early on

[nova zealot]

Yeah, @open rain synching there helped cull out the crap early, I think

[lapis geyser]

as you'll note from the n12 video we got longer footage from them, not just the crappy 6s clip you see in the news

[barren coral]

Great work, congratulations on the article!

[lapis geyser]

so watch that closely in our video sync, i think we're the first to publish that?

[red wind]

This video (although the analysis contains inaccuracies) shows that there were four explosions in the vicinity before the hospital explosion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyNLvL_8SeY&t=63s

[lapis geyser]

yeah the AJ cameraman footage was great and helped a ton

the fact that his camera was almost parallel to the n12 footage, which we had in full, made it easy-breezy

(not the stream footage, but the video he posted on IG before he deleted it)

[nova zealot]

I think the qualitative thing that threw a lot of people off, is that the AJA stream camera was a high quality camera with an insanely good lens, meaning the footage of the interceptor explosion is probably quite unique, but also far beyond what people expect a camera is able to do.

[lapis geyser]

yeah the perspective threw everyone off

[barren coral]

Yeah. But once the webcam footage from bat yam came out, there was very little excuse for not locating the launch

[lapis geyser]

everyone assumed event X led to Y. missile shot down, crashes, therefore... hospital!

but the first thing that tipped us off that it wasn't related wasn't other camera angles, but just that there was so much fire exchange at the time... it wasn't a one-in-a-million chance of the rocket in the sky wasn't related, but like one-in-ten if there were other booms going on simultaneously

[barren coral]

Even without the AJ cameraman's footage, with the Bat Yam webcam and the Al Jazeera stream you could reliably place the launch in Israel

[lapis geyser]

thing i wish we were able to do is precisely geolocate what other places were getting hit and find morning-after footage there

[barren coral]

lack of time or lack of data?

[queen blade]

would help tremendoulsy

[lapis geyser]

both

[barren coral]

Will you be able to share the longer N12 footage?

[lapis geyser]

i only searched a couple hours searching my TG lists for some keywords like zeitoun, street names, etc

[lapis geyser]

if i was at bellingcat sure lol. but no sorry.

[pine kiln]

Thanks for coming in here to share the news

[covert steppe]

Indeed. It's good to know we haven't been collectively going insane.

Or well, at least in this regard ; )

[boreal saddle]

talking about this "analysis": https://twitter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1715422493274427414
also this (in my view) is probably the most important realization in all this drama: https://twitter.com/marcgarlasco/status/1715858242868523044

[barren coral]

Regarding parts of a weapon, ArchieIrving posted this, asking about possible wreckage: https://twitter.com/ArchieIrving2/status/1714482185418469644. I haven't seen that picture discussed

[covert steppe]

This is conjecture but there are some carbon fiber shelled airburst weapons that might not leave much of a trace beyond pieces of the fuse buried in the crater

[covert steppe]

It's so incredibly blurry idk if much could be done with it

This is an example of a composite cased munition

[pine kiln]

Did you check Calibre Obscura on that?

[barren coral]

No, I haven't

[queen blade]

fwiw, ArchieIrving acknowledges they are not an expect and are only saying this hoping an expert will chime in

[barren coral]

Yeah, I realize that. I only brought it up because it's the only picture of possible weapon parts wreckage that I've seen

[queen blade]

might be worth asking in #bombs-arms-drones-other-killing-machines

[crimson ruin]

https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1717046547009994991

[nova zealot]

Don't worry, there are even worse takes.

[queen blade]

UGH this is infuriating

[boreal saddle]

it's also fascinating how people with an agenda still feel it's more valuable to grossly misrepresent reputable media instead of just making up stuff from scratch 🙄

[hexed sequoia]

Let's focus on the actual event though instead of discussing other people's shitty takes (unless they are particularly noteworthy).

[pine kiln]

Is disinfo ok? I think it's interesting to look at it

[open rain]

Before the hospital explosion there were at least 6 explosions starting at ~7-6 minutes before the hospital explosion (though for one of them I only have the footage with the smoke, not the explosion itself (an another strike hitting there later)),
And at least 8 explosion in ~10 minutes after the hospital explosion.

[hexed sequoia]

Yeah, sure. As long as it doesn't drown out the primary discussion.

#1161401676943609907 would also be an option, of course.

Oh, I see it's already there.

[vocal sluice]

The quality of this curve is really bad. It even looks like its decreasing at the end.

[vocal sluice]

wow this is interesting

[snow anvil]

The first thing I thought about when I saw that was "plastic water bottle"

[vocal sluice]

Do we even know that these are the remnants and not an actual plastic water bottle? I dont speak arabic do they mention something like that in the video? Does it match the impact site?

[snow anvil]

No, that's the thing

[open rain]

It does look like a molten/damaged plastic bottle

[snow anvil]

There's 1,000 things strewn about on that grassy area: backpacks, pillows, water bottles, pieces of the fence, wood splinters, etc.

Any one of those things can look like the remnant of a munition if you squint

[open rain]

I've looked at the graphic video linked there, while Archie says that it is "its about 20 times bigger" than a plastic water bottle - it is not 20 times bigger (looks like maybe 1-2 liter bottle, with a very graphic object from a moment before used as a reference for size).

[snow anvil]

Agreed!

[vocal sluice]

Didnt Hamas state at the beginning that they HAVE remnants of the munition?

[iron dragon]

“The missile has dissolved like salt in the water,” said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, in a phone interview. “It’s vaporized. Nothing is left.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-hospital-evidence.html

Channel 4 earlier said that hamas had remenants, but I don't belive it was based on hamas statements but on reporting from the ground(people would have to check that though). And the NYT statement was following that

[zealous sparrow]

question, how you had that angle of the view for the n12 footage figured out? or was that longer part you gotten really just a bit higher quality allowing to figure it out?

i tried getting Nathan Rusher to reply to me about that one since he stated "The argument is immediately refutable since the same camera did film the explosion at the hospital"

but that has sadly been ignored 😄 or unseen

[red wind]

The PIJ has said this according to a Channel 4 News report

[vocal sluice]

Do you happen to have a link to that report?

[crimson ruin]

It was something along the lines of there being an Israeli nosecone in the crater.

[iron dragon]

I belive it's this one https://www.channel4.com/news/human-rights-investigators-raise-new-questions-on-gaza-hospital-explosion

[iron dragon]

yep, @ 9:18

"Islamic Jihad claimed to have a missile fragment, but have not produced it" is the specific phrasing, not Hamas.

[red wind]

yep
also in this one from october 18
https://www.channel4.com/news/who-was-behind-the-gaza-hospital-blast-visual-investigation
@ 4:05

[open rain]

I do not know if it is known widely enough, but those splash marks highlighted in red in FA investigation - are only a part of all the splash marks around the crater (visible in earlier photos/videos)

Good bunch of them are visible towards ~ north-west from the crater, image from https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/an-asymmetrical-conundrum-israel-and-palestine

[lapis geyser]

was easy! very distinct new construction buildings

[lapis geyser]

it did not film the hospital explosion -- even in our longer version, it stops recording a few seconds before the hospital explosion. the one you see (that he and others, including the Israelis, said was the hospital boom) was unrelated.

[open rain]

Does the N12 footage you have show lights (most likely decoy flares) at the top right corner?

[lapis geyser]

you mean the flare looking things? yep

Hard to tell in this screenshot but yeah there's something up there on the top right.

[opaque spire]

I wrote a short thread showing that you can come to the complete opposite conclusion of FA by using a well known example of a rocket attack on Mariupol in 2015: https://vxtwitter.com/michaelyartys/status/1715465221559472295

[covert steppe]

https://vxtwitter.com/samswey/status/1717119628613456136

This implication plus the US gov explicitly talking down an independent on the ground investigation is, uh, a very bad look

[sly kraken]

honestly i think they probably have more intel and are just saying it's that so they don't have to declassify other stuff

[covert steppe]

There's been multiple attempts by Israel to produce a smoking gun. Given how destabilizing the hospital explosion was geopolitically, I'd think if they had an incontrovertible smoking gun they'd be eager to produce it ASAP. Getting caught lying, again... that's very bad.

And not just any variety of lying. Claiming their own missile, that they should have telemetry data from, is the cause and was from Gaza. Just incredibly damning.

[lapis geyser]

Honestly not sure about that. I thought so too before about two days ago. Now, I don't think so.

[pine kiln]

He clearly doesn't know this server

[covert steppe]

Kind of aligns with reports of large numbers of folks within State and diplomats freaking over how unquestioningly the US gov is following the Israeli gov's lead.

[open rain]

Oh, quality looks really bad, worse than in that short N12 footage, but may help to determine location and direction of movement more precisely.

Yes, I think that those flare looking things are most likely the same flare looking things as in "Ashdod" footage (Bat Yam POV). They allow one to see the movement of two aircraft for ~38 seconds before the hospital explosion on "Ashdod" footage (Bat Yam).

Basic description, starting at ~15 seconds before the N12 explosion, and ~38 seconds before the hospital explosion from the Bat Yam POV:

4.7 seconds after the start of the rocket barrage (as in n12 footage), "Aircraft 1" starts releasing decoy flares (usually with an interval of ~2 seconds between sets of flares). Based on decoy flares deployed by it - it is in process of changing course from left (sea -> Gaza) towards right (Gaza -> sea). For the first 5-6 seconds it's movement has a component towards left, after that - towards right. The last set of flares it launches is 2 seconds after the intercept missile explodes in the air.

"Aircraft 2" deploys its first decoy flares 2 seconds after the "aircraft 1" does it, it is moving left. It deploys 4 more sets of decoy flares in the next 10 seconds, then it stops deploying them for 13 seconds (n12 explosion happens 3.3 seconds after it stops deploying flares). Then it starts deploying them again (13 seconds after the last time), still moving left, 2 seconds later (12 seconds before the hospital explosion) by observing a new set of flares, one can see that Aircraft 2 started changing direction. It continues changing direction for the next 11 seconds, while launching 3 more sets of flare decoys, last of them is 0.4 second before the hospital explosion.

Footage used: https://fxtwitter.com/i/status/1714745483988435179 (bottom right frame)
Timestamps for every decoy flare set deployment (and other notable events) is here (hard to follow): #1164615723755241472 message

[open rain]

On this twitch footage (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1952846017 , 28 hours long) from the same camera (Bat Yam POV, wider angle, worse quality), one can see at least one other aircraft approaching Gaza by the flares it deploys approximately in the same timeframe (timestamp: 17:24:46, visible for 8 seconds, then at 17:26:09, as soon as a new rocket barrage starts, and another aircraft approaching Gaza launches decoy flares at 17:26:18).

[covert steppe]

Is it just my eyes or does it seem like that rocket barrage happens "too soon" to be a plausible cause for the hospital explosion (as in, too much time between the last rocket fired and the explosion)?

[open rain]

Maybe it is possible, if rocket goes widely off course (up, and maybe underpowered, to not go too far up), but I have not seen such rockets on footage available to me (or maybe the model in my head is just completely wrong).

[covert steppe]

Hmm

if we could calculate an upper/lower bound of the speed and direction vector of the rocket barrage, could potentially come up with something a little harder than just intuition.

Would then be able to model the trajectories, see if those bounds allow an end point in the hospital given wind resistance and other parameters.

[open rain]

There are two rockets that look to me to be the most likely candidates out of all other rockets (still unlikely to me) - two dots that are below the first aircraft (00:00:14.921 in the https://fxtwitter.com/i/status/1714745483988435179 downloaded using yt-dlp).

[covert steppe]

Do you have a link to that clip so I can view it in a local media player?

[open rain]

Here (exactly the same if you download):

[covert steppe]

Thanks

@open rain these the candidates you're referring to?

[open rain]

yes

I do doubt that ballistic calculations would be of much use here - if those rockets were malfunctioning/deformed - they could have had a very weird trajectory, I think.

[covert steppe]

We don't see engine glow after the barrage so the only factor that could change the trajectory is a change in air resistance characteristics.

after the rocket stops firing, and assuming it doesn't explode, the only notable forces at work in the rocket's "force body diagram" are g and the drag coefficient

[sly kraken]

hypothetical launch sequence:

1. rocket is launched, stuffed with more fuel than usual for greater range
2. fuel ignites, launches
3. rapid expansion of fuel beyond design parameters explodes
4. fins and part of the body are damaged, rocket tumbles
5. warhead falls causes explosions
6. fuel in semi solid form reignites upon contact with ground (explosion) leading to fire

is this plausible?

[covert steppe]

We don't see a mid air explosion though. Or rather I should say, we don't see a mid air ignition/combustion after the initial firing.

I don't know enough about the thruster design mechanics of solid fuel rockets to know if expansion of solid fuel given a change in temp and atm pressure is significant enough to potentially fracture the casing.

[sly kraken]

i guess it depends on the casing and the fuel

[covert steppe]

Basically if we know direction vector and v at the moment it stops firing we should be able to calculate resultant trajectory. Additionally we could decrease mass or increase drag coefficient at various parts to see what the effect would be; if a sudden change in those parameters makes it any more likely for the rocket to land in the hospital.

@open rain are we assuming these are Qassam 4 rockets?

[opaque spire]

That’s not the only way the trajectory could change. If for whatever reason a fin got damaged or the rocket body somehow deformed that would change the aerodynamic forces on the rocket.

[covert steppe]

If the rocket is your average Hamas Qassam then it won't be spinning. If a fin is damaged after the motor shuts off the rocket will tumble, which will sum to a change in the drag coefficient, but existing momentum will be conserved, and that momentum is what we are mostly concerned about.

[lapis geyser]

Oh this is amazing, didn't know this existed. Thank you!

[open rain]

I am in no way an expert here (my expertise level - launched some rockets in KSP-1 RP-1 😅 ). I imagine that it is possible for some damage from a burn through on the body of the rocket (without damage to the fins) to make it have uneven air resistance, which may cause the nose to act somewhat as a lifting body... sorry, I really do not know what I am talking about.

[opaque spire]

But working with the assumption that the rocket followed a ballistic trajectory isn't unreasonable. If that doesn't lead anywhere, then you'll have to consider that the rocket didn't follow a ballistic path.

[open rain]

You are welcome 🙂

[covert steppe]

@open rain Possibly for a moment but I highly doubt an upward force vector being applied in that manner to the rocket body would be symmetrical enough to be stable for long or of large enough magnitude to change the resultant trajectory to a high degree.

The goal with modeling a rocket trajectory wouldn't be to show exactly where it landed, but to establish bounds of plausibility. It'd put in perspective the magnitude of forces that would be required to manipulate that trajectory to get it to the hospital. Basically if parameters need to be extreme or fine tuned just so for that rocket to get there, then that implies less plausibility.

[covert steppe]

Exactly. It helps to put things into perspective, which can help focus subsequent analysis.

[nova zealot]

I like this type of thinking a lot.

[sharp forge]

Do we have any knowledge about the normal failure modes of these sorts of solid rockets? (ie would it be normal for them to 'burn out' immediately? We know they often fall short, but is it known why?

My rudimentary understanding is that if you get a solid rocket going it's not going to stop until it either runs out of fuel or explodes.

Can an exceptionally shoddy mix of propellants give you a brief burst and flame-out?

I realize absent any remains this is largely speculation

[nova zealot]

I've been logging stuff and I keep forgetting to save obvious useful stuff.
This tweet (fairly random) contains a clip from a longer video that IDF released with failed missiles (with dates) that showed a lot of examples. It's hard to tell when they are powered or not, but this clip contains two. The longer clip might be useful to get at least some examples.
21. October 2023, several missiles: https://vxtwitter.com/AcknerEzra/status/1715966725169074549
edit: More examples:
11. May 2023, single missile: https://twitter.com/MEMENTO_Inolv/status/1714502220794761560
7. August 2022, single missile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4gDddpGqww

[covert steppe]

The one near the end that's low flying looks powered for a short time at the beginning and then follows a ballistic trajectory after the engine shuts off. It looks like the burn time is too short and the firing angle is wrong?

[nova zealot]

Added two more examples. Sadly I cannot find the more recent IDF video that showed quite a few examples. Roughly my feeling is that you have the U-turn failures, the ones that lose power and slowly fall out of the sky, and you have low-angle ones that hit ground with high speed. But this is by no means exhaustive.

[sly kraken]

these arent that removed from a firework, so it could be many reasons

also worth noting these rockets are powered by a homemade mix of sugar and fertilizer

[open rain]

I'd like to see a footage of a rocket that failed to fly outside of Gaza not by going slower and lower, but by going as fast as others, but at a too high an angle relative to the ground.

@covert steppe About those two rockets from Bat Yam pov footage - I do not think those were launched from the launch site 1 that is to the west-west-south from the hospital.
I think those were launched from launch site 2 that is to the north of the hospital (based on the radar map from the IDF)

[covert steppe]

Ah LS-2

[open rain]

I think you can see one of those rockets in the N12 footage with a person describing events in English (but not in the version without a talking head).

[nova zealot]

Aric updated his thread: https://vxtwitter.com/AricToler/status/1717231050462511376?t=JzrZHF90mXuFEzMeFpWJcQ&s=19
Basically le Monde (with a journalist acknowledging the work of Sam and fdov) confirms.
And that the potential intercepted missile was visible on the IDF map (which I think was theorized here by overlaying the IDF radar with a geolocation map)

[modern urchin]

Could someone please provide a threadreader link for those without X?

[queen blade]

https://nitter.net/AricToler/status/1717231050462511376

[night flicker]

https://vxtwitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1717161359203266907
gifted by AnnetteFunicello https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5Uw.mOwa.IrsFR7d2NqXb&smid=url-share

[snow anvil]

yup it's been posted before and it's been discussed all day here

[queen blade]

A gift link had not been posted!

[muted sparrow]

so does this just put us back at square one?

[night flicker]

You mean the gift link didn't work? I just tried it again, it's ok https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5Uw.mOwa.IrsFR7d2NqXb&smid=url-share

[snow anvil]

Its fine

[nova zealot]

In terms of attribution, not really? I think most of those looking at ground-evidence didn't actually need the "failing rocket", as bombs, missiles etc wouldn't be visible anyway on the AJA video anyway. We've been on square one there since the beginning because of the lack of evidence. And that creating composite evidence is really hard (as the discussion above proves).
The real news here, IMO, is that intelligence agencies and multiple large media organizations did a spectacularly bad OSINT job. Because they used the AJA video as their primary evidence for attribution.

[muted sparrow]

ah so we've never LEFT square one.

[limber temple]

Important thing would be finding any sort of weapon remnant — but fact that we haven't seen on this long after means we may never see one. And even if a group like Hamas or PIJ presented one now, there's no way to know it actually came from the incident unless there's visuals taken from around the time of the incident that night that prove the weapon fragment was there.

[queen blade]

Biggest thing to look for are photos of the courtyard right after the impact

But you'd have to be able to verify them. And just having them doesn't mean you get anywhere on IDing munitions

and assuming Hamas or PIJ controlled the site, we may never get those images beyond what has been released already

[nova zealot]

An analysis of the type AF (and no, don't dare talk about crater analysis) is famous for, ie photogrammetric composites of the whole scene, might be the best solution to answer the question of type of armaments. Since it would need tagging casualties, putting in context many diseparate images (I've seen many images, indoors damage, stains or bodies, that I have no idea relates to the blast), fragments, burns, blast-damage etc, that isn't obvious from 2-3 photos.

[limber temple]

The Hamas statement given to the NYT on the availability of remnants doesn't inspire much hope.

“The missile has dissolved like salt in the water,” said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, in a phone interview. “It’s vaporized. Nothing is left.”

[queen blade]

Exactly

odd thing for a munition to do.

[nova zealot]

One theory raised here is the type of bomb designed to reduce collateral damage, as that's a type that does not have a metal body. (Name escapes me, and I'm turning too tired)

[toxic mural]

Pure speculation: the possibility that what hit the hospital was some sort of novel munition that is not being widely used elsewhere seems really unlikely given the amount of bombing that is being done with all the 'standard' stuff that we've seen for years.

[covert steppe]

Carbon fiber composite body

[covert steppe]

Not just bad job. I don't think it's a reach to claim it's deceitful. Of course can't prove intent but... C'mon. They had to have telemetry data from that interceptor, and they claimed a "different interpretation" when confronted with the physical impossibility of their explanation.

[covert steppe]

There is footage taken by a journalist from the night after the fires had been put out that was uploaded to IG but is now expired. I've been told this footage has some views of large metal fragments that might warrant an expert's eye. Contacting the journalist to procure it might be worthwhile

[crude badger]

Speaking about pure speculation, but the thought came to me when watching one of the videos of a rocket that appears to have failed before the explosion occurred; is "wake turbulence" a issue for rockets and missiles as it is in the field of aviation?

[hexed sequoia]

Your message isn't speculation, it's a great reminder not to fall into the temptation of exotic explanations!

[nova zealot]

(warning speculation) IDF does engage in "weaponeering" (as discussed here, https://lieber.westpoint.edu/inside-idf-targeting/) so they might have wanted to reduce collateral damage. Eg they do use bunker busters and do have a wide array of modern US SDBs. So, I don't think it's unlikely that they might use weapons they own.

[lapis geyser]

Yes, basically. No OSINT person who isn't stuck in October 19 or 20th (or who isn't very stubborn) still thought that the projectile in the video was the cause of the explosion, and most thought it was an interceptor launched from Israel. The biggest revelation in working on this story is the house of cards that the US/Israeli assessments are built off of, which have been so confidently cited by everyone. Very, very plausible that this was a PIJ rocket gone astray -- but the forensic proof on the ground (which exists but is not very robust), and Hamas not showing anything to anyone, is basically the only tangible thing that supports this that I'd put any trust into. Those intercepts have been widely criticized, obviously.

[covert steppe]

WRT the forensics of the site, have we ever seen a failed Hamas rocket produce a fireball of that size?

[muted sparrow]

It seems like nation-state actors both want to come to a particular conclusion, and also, don't want to say that they don't know

[nova zealot]

Also, a shot in the dark, but... I saw an Arabic tweet, with some red graphics, from a news organization that an idf officer saying the al-ahli hospital was targeted. I think this is related to the incident a few days before or just dis-info, and the date is 19th Oct max. So, by any chance, does anyone have it?

[shrewd dust]

There's no reason Hamas/PIJ rockets couldn't make a fireball of that size. Fireball size is a pretty bad identifier to try and use. The stereotypical "hollywood" fireball explosion are just trash bags of gas being detonated, resulting in a huge fireball. IDF released a little highlight reel of Hamas/PIJ rockets failing, but I can't find the source video. Having said that Fireball size is a terrible indicator, I'd keep in mind if you're looking for comparisons that Hamas/PIJ have a wide range of rocket sizes, and explosions with propellant left over near point of origin, versus a rocket with little to no propellant left are going to look different when they explode.

[covert steppe]

The question isn't can they, the question is do they. The fireball came from somewhere. It indicates certain things. Any explanation must account for it (which is a reason why HE munitions don't fit the bill). If, for various reasons, even with a decent amount of rocket candy still in the tube, a Hamas rocket doesn't produce a fireball like that, with the size and speed observed, then that's an important thing to know.

[shrewd dust]

Rocket propellant/low explosives can produce large fireballs. It's hard to say "yes they generate fireballs" when they should likely only do so if they fail, or have a good amount of propellant left. The size of the fireball is going to be heavily dependent on how much fuel is left as well. There's also so many different unknown factors between the hospital fireball and any other failed Hamas/PIJ rocket launch that it's not going to be a viable comparison. Even the area where the blast occurs can make it look different. For reference, these fireballs are just detonated bags of gasoline. https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/19539920/more-explosions-expected-at-kaneohe-marine-corps-base-hawaii/

This report goes into the production schematics of the Badr-3. The Quds leak provides a good bit of information on that specific rocket. "The Quds leaks also document Iran’s training of PIJ cadres in the production of aluminium powder and ammonium perchlorate which, alongside hydroxylterminated polybutadiene, form the key components of more advanced ammonium-perchlorate composite propellants." https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library---content--migration/files/research-papers/irans-new-approach-to-missile-proliferation.pdf

Here's also two videos. One that shows rocket motor tests, and one that shows the propellant being loaded into the motor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKHUlSPOgc&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfo7oGE7ENg

I haven't been able to find anything that specifically states how much propellant their rocket motors are supposed to have, for the Badr-3 or any other model

[covert steppe]

Thanks, will read later

[still solar]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/new-york-times-gaza-hospital-story

[open rain]

@jolly thistle Hi, do you only archive youtube streams? Can I ask you to add to the archive a 28 hour twitch stream (~80GB) that contains Al-Ahli hospital explosion footage from the Bat Yam POV ("Ashdod") with the widest angle (but low quality)? https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1952846017

[bronze lynx]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67216929

BBC page updated 1 hour ago

[zealous sparrow]

thiquite certain that fdov downloaded that one too

[open rain]

I've downloaded it too in full (to more easily get timestamps from it), but I'll most likely not be keeping it for very long.

[jolly thistle]

hey, sorry for the delay. I can back it up, sure. But is there a reason to backup this one rather than the original sources themselves? Or do we not know what the sources are?

[zealous sparrow]

this twitch stream i think was one of the few that shows a bit "wider" image

[jolly thistle]

oh ok

downloading

the content that was streamed live is 80GB, but the VOD at the same resolution etc. is about 40GB, so I'm downloading that one

[open rain]

Here is my the reason to care about footage from this twitch stream:
#1164615723755241472 message

I was not able to find any other "Ashdod" footage that is longer than a minute around the hospital explosion (or one with as wide of an angle but better quality), if you know of such footage - please let me know.

[jolly thistle]

makes sense

[open rain]

sorry, that was a wrong discord message link somehow, correct one is here: #1164615723755241472 message
" one can see at least one other aircraft approaching Gaza by the flares it deploys approximately in the same timeframe (timestamp: 17:24:46, visible for 8 seconds, then at 17:26:09, as soon as a new rocket barrage starts, and another aircraft approaching Gaza launches decoy flares at 17:26:18)"

[jolly thistle]

ok that makes more sense

[robust quartz]

HYPOTHESIS: A rocket from the cemetery by the hospital fails on launch and flips a short distance into the hospital car park.

There's no sign of it in the video (and the launch would be within the camera's line of sight) but I'm wondering if it would necessarily show up in the video, e.g. because of the low trajectory and possily little flame.

[opaque spire]

That doesn't really fit with the sound of the rocket that indicated that it was moving very fast.

[robust quartz]

Good point

[opaque spire]

Some new tweets added to this thread: https://vxtwitter.com/malachybrowne/status/1717649910873436582

[open rain]

And a new footage https://fxtwitter.com/malachybrowne/status/1717649922122453111

[lapis geyser]

yep! that's the footage we used, mal was a wizard in getting a hold of it

[zealous sparrow]

hmm shows that same explosion from the sec. footage? and n12 nvm read the whole thread meanwhile

help hold that camera steady

[open rain]

This video may allow to plot a reasonably good approximation of trajectories those two aircraft launching decoy flares (top right) are taking.

[zealous sparrow]

fcking awful how badly n12 cut the footage

[nova zealot]

The N12 footage is so bad.
On the fuel theory. If the barrage is the source, wouldn't the fuel be spent? Afaict they don't fire for long? 30-44 seconds if we use the WSJ timings is longer than what they burn for? Of course, it could mean one cut short or something.

[barren coral]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/10/26/gaza-hospital-blast-evidence-israel-hamas/ (https://archive.ph/9RiXp)

[spice anvil]

hi all, popping in here to share a gift link to our new story that was just published tonight. have been really impressed by the work being done by a lot of folks in here and will be giving shout outs on twitter. happy to answer what Qs people might have but aric got at a lot of the interceptor mystery with their excellent piece https://wapo.st/3tG0IKf

[covert steppe]

Nice to see the freefall issue finally being pointed out

[lapis geyser]

the piece is very good, v comprehensive

[nova zealot]

I had a question above. Has anyone ever answered this?

[lapis geyser]

Yeah the timing is tough to figure out. The time from the final rocket being fired to the hospital explosion is... quite a while.

(About 25 seconds)

So, basically the "Palestinian rocket" theory hinges on the question of if a rocket could go up, do ???? (malfunction, etc), then hit the hospital in 25 seconds -- or much longer, as 25s is just the final rocket we observe from the barrages. Assuming it was from one of the two barrages going off right before the interceptor was launched. Experts in the WaPo piece say that fits.

[nova zealot]

And then it would still need fuel to, ehm, fuel the fuel explosion. But i concur. It's hard to narrow down reasonable constraints.

[spice anvil]

yeah as we make a point of saying in the piece: everything remains circumstantial, even if quite a few important pieces fit together. no access to ground + no fragments means no conclusive evidence.

a good job by bbc verify highlighting the EPA photos of a gaza police EOD officer digging through the crater not long after the blast

want to say it was a pleasure chatting with @valid oriole & @barren coral, great stuff

[queen blade]

Nice work @spice anvil and wapo team!

[hexed sequoia]

Hi, could you elaborate on what this tweet adds to the discussion?

[night flicker]

Nothing, too late for me to think, will remove

[crimson ruin]

Has anyone else seen these kind of things going around?
(Note: could be disinfo)
https://vxtwitter.com/HenMazzig/status/1717909032281809300

[coral dagger]

different hospital, but see #israel-palestine message

[crimson ruin]

Ooops. You're right.
Thanks for that link.
Insightful.

[nova zealot]

An independent 3d-dude made an investigation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVk7c125pMM
Viewers discretion: I am not familiar with the source, and it has some minor factual errors and questionable analysis, and worse, crater analysis. I found it on Twitter, but lost track of who originally posted it.
But interesting because of the 3d-reconstruction of trajectory, barrage and flares. These look OK. Sort of a discount AF when it comes to production.

[opaque spire]

Looks like that guy is a 9/11 truther btw.

[hexed sequoia]

Yeah, he is. And he's affiliated with other notorious disinformation spreaders.

So I wouldn't see him as a reliable analyst.

[opaque spire]

I agree with his point that FA's crater analysis is wrong, but I'm not sure about the point that dust is covering part of the fragmentation scarring.

lol, and the music that's used in the video is so typical for conspiracy-related videos.

EDIT: and there's even a #FreeJulianAssange tag at the end of the video.

[nova zealot]

The point about dust has been raised before. The photo he used is taken early in the morning (it's dusk) and you can tell dust does cover up the areas next to the broken fences.

[covert steppe]

Yeah the video seems a bit worthless, but I really like that method of trying to map 3d paths using the video footage. I used to do stuff like that in Autodesk 3dsMax years ago

[nova zealot]

Not surprised, but don't say I didn't warn you 😉 - I was thinking of writing even more disclaimers, tho. I think it's mostly interesting for the testable work and for some novel ideas.

[opaque spire]

No worries. Even if things turn out to be wrong in the video it can provide some new ideas about what to look at.

[open rain]

This video covers the thing I hoped will be investigated and published about by someone who is not conspiracy theorist.. I've seen that video when it was published, but decided not to post it here to not to create an association between investigating those aircraft possible (imho likely) part in the hospital explosion and "conspiracy theorising".

[nova zealot]

I absolutely agree about the points on coverage. And I had second thoughts myself since I saw it yesterday. But figured I think it's worth mentioning for completeness; also it wouldn't be the first erroneous analysis mentioned 😉

[opaque spire]

I haven't been following this all that close, but do we know that those flares are deployed by helicopters? I.e. do we know that there are helicopters in that video?

[nova zealot]

We've been saying "jets/helicopters", aircraft or simply flares because we don't have data. I think he arrived at that conclusion to fit his theory on helicopters being audible in the Hamdan video (which he posted more about on twitter). I would obviously oppose such methodologies (hypothesis fitting), even if trying to correlate audio and flares would be interesting. And that's my main problem with his video; the enormous lack of qualifiers.

[open rain]

They move at >230 m/s (>828km/h) when they are going in a straight line (at least 2350m on ground at 10.2 seconds). I have no idea if helicopters can move that fast.

[opaque spire]

That sounds waaay too fast.

[open rain]

I've checked on two intervals with almost same results, will check on others

[opaque spire]

The max speed of Apache attack helicopters (Israel uses these) is listed as 293 kph on Wikipedia.

[nova zealot]

@open rain is that done by geolocating N12 vs "Ashdod"?

[native marsh]

I'm a lurker and I finally have a question--I'm not sure where to put this. I was talking with a friend who believes it was the IDF who bombed the hospital. He made the argument that rockets from Hamas or Islamic Jihad usually only kill a few people. He had heard the argument that the casualty numbers made it likely this was an Israel rocket. He said rockets from the Palestinian side had never come near that number of killed ever. Thoughts on this?

[opaque spire]

If a rocket lands in a space that's packed to the brim with people you're going to see a lot of deaths, regardless of the exact type of rocket. The hospital yard was packed with people.

The initial claim of 500+ deaths is widely regarded as an overestimate too.

[hexed sequoia]

If he's talking about the deaths on the Israeli side, there are two main reasons I can think of. For one, Israel is heavily pushing civil and military defense measures. The other aspect is that the rockets are out of fuel by the time they arrive in Israel. A failed/stray rocket would likely include significant amounts of unburnt fuel in the explosion.

[covert steppe]

It really depends on the combustion properties of the fuel, whether a rocket hit there because of direction issues or an incomplete burn

[hexed sequoia]

That's true. But disproving the argument of the friend only requires the existence of one plausible scenario in which the explosion was more damaging than usual.

[open rain]

So, speed for the segments I have for the "aircraft 2" assuming it moves in the direction of the explosion shown in n12 footage (it should be very close to a straight line, based on the flares that can be seen on the longer n12 footage), position was projected from the Bat Yam pov (used close up footage of the Ashdod port and a couple of hi res satellite images to precisely align something like 18 directions (light poles) and verified by almost precisely projecting rays from the Bat Yam camera to the two iron dome sites that launched intercept missiles):
Here are segments that should be straight (on approach to the n12 explosion location (~ in line with the hospital)), starting at 13.544 seconds before the n12 explosion:
535m/2.168s = 247 m/s
610m/2.337s = 261 m/s
726m/3.236s = 224 m/s
488m/2.102s = 232 m/s
610m/2.702s = 226 m/s

[idle smelt]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy4Q4tqrx07/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== nytimes claiming the rocket came likely from Israeli territory and then today Washingtonpost https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy60tR-LX5o/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== claiming it was likely a rocket coming from Gaza

Instagram

washingtonpost

Fighters in Gaza launched a barrage of rockets toward Israel and in the direction of al-Ahli Hospital 44 seconds before an explosion there that killed at least 100 people on Oct. 17, according to a visual analysis by The Washington Post.

Video obtained from Israeli television channel Keshet 12 News allowed The Post to geolocate the origin of th...

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5654

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[queen blade]

I think you're misunderstanding what you've posted here. Please read both the NYT and WaPo articles. They've been discussed at length in this forum post and contributors to both have discussed them.

I see this is also not the first time you've posted this misinterpretation of the NYT analysis

But a detailed visual analysis by The New York Times concludes that the video clip — taken from an Al Jazeera television camera livestreaming on the night of Oct. 17 — shows something else. The missile seen in the video is most likely not what caused the explosion at the hospital. It actually detonated in the sky roughly two miles away, The Times found, and is an unrelated aspect of the fighting that unfolded over the Israeli-Gaza border that night.

The Times’s finding does not answer what actually did cause the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital blast, or who is responsible. The contention by Israeli and American intelligence agencies that a failed Palestinian rocket launch is to blame remains plausible. But the Times analysis does cast doubt on one of the most publicized pieces of evidence that Israeli officials have used to make their case and complicates the straightforward narrative they have put forth.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5Uw.mOwa.IrsFR7d2NqXb&smid=url-share

[open rain]

Intercept missile explosion have likely happened at ~7.8 km from the hospital (or 6km ground distance, 5km height).
Based on Bat Yam footage, IDF radar map and the time it took the sound from it to get to the Hamdan camera (26.5 seconds) - explosion should have been somewhere close to ( 31.477438°, 34.516484° ) at ~5km height.

[idle smelt]

I‘m sorry about that. I wanted to know what the community says but I didn’t find the part when this post was discussed. I didn’t mean to post any wrong leads. Thank you for clarifying.

I believe the reason why it was posted twice, I don’t have to explain.

[zealous sparrow]

don't be sorry, at least you try to understand it foryourself.. some news papers made it terribly difficult to figure out..

[spring anvil]

Is there any good sumarization of the debate about the explosion? And what has been debunked and what hasn't?

[open rain]

For now, the best article published in a respectable journal is https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5Uw.mOwa.IrsFR7d2NqXb&smid=url-share
Or a twitter thread by one of NYT investigators https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1717015483843576248

Summary from me (not based on NYT article):

1. Missile that exploded in the sky was an iron dome missile, and had no relation to the hospital explosion (too far from the hospital for any possibility of shrapnel or any debris somehow hitting the hospital).
2. It is highly unlikely that a rocket from the rocket barrage that started 43 seconds (and went for ~10 seconds) before the hospital explosion have hit it (just by timing (or by requiring the rocket to have a very steep trajectory, with no such rockets on available footage)).
3. There were ~15 strikes in total, with some of them somewhat close to the hospital in 20 minutes aroung the hospital explosion.
4. It might be a good idea to not to trust conclusions of any crater/sound analysis that have not considered a possibility of an air strike from the west direction (there were aircraft launching decoy flares). Especially analysis that dismisses such a possibility saying it could not have been JDAM 500 / 1000 lb, without mentioning GBU-39 and Spice 250 (250lb bombs).

[red hawk]

On the the thread unintentional missile, is there any info that a failed Iron Dome missile might have landed there? e: Or rather has that been considered as a possibility.

[open rain]

If you are talking about some other Iron Dome missile (not the one exploding "over the hospital"), that was launched before that - I think that should be the most unlikely thing (not literally the most).

[red hawk]

Correct, not the one that detonated above. I'm not super familiar with it just curious if they have been ruled out / reasoning.

[open rain]

My reasoning is: Iron Dome missiles are designed to explode in the air, they are designed well, it would just be a very strange coincidence for such a missile to strike a hospital 1.7 seconds after a location <1.5km from the hospital was hit (likely by an airstrike).

[red hawk]

Yes which is why I am wondering if one could have malfunctioned during interception and struck with unspent fuel.

[slow sky]

Crater analysis seems especially pointless given how blasts/pressure waves can be incredibly varied, imo

Just from my inexperienced pov, i feel like there are so many issues with assuming how an explosion would hit, e.g. direction, path of least res., etc

[open rain]

I have 0 expertise related to impact/crater analysis, I just assume it is hard to do right, harder if you only have access to videos/photos, and even harder if one assumes that nothing could have arrived from some direction, because there were no launches of rockets from there or because there is a sea in that direction.

[hidden forge]

Yes, that's why we've asked people to not speculate on it.

[sudden gazelle]

This way of thinking about probabilities etc is something which has very often lead to miscarriages of justice so I would be very weary using it for anything other than brainstorming

[sharp forge]

It would likely be visible in footage, at least in the boost phase

I think all of the launches of Iron Dome around the time are basically accounted for

[sharp forge]

In particularly when there's no remains (edit: presented), so no specific munition type to correlate it with

[spice anvil]

the NYT article, which focuses on the interceptor, does not address the rocket barrage from the southwest other than mentioning that it occurred and saying the "explosion at the hospital is consistent with a failed rocket falling well short of its target with unspent fuel."

the experts we spoke to for our comprehensive look at all the evidence said most if not all the rockets fired from that barrage would have reached the hospital site in time for the explosion: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/10/26/gaza-hospital-blast-evidence-israel-hamas/

how much fuel one of those rockets would have needed to cause the blast, factoring in fuel on the ground that could also have been ignited, might be something we will never be able to determine. but the launch site of the barrage matches the site the IDF identified as the source of the misfired rocket that impacted the hospital grounds. what they haven't released is footage of that rocket falling.

[sharp forge]

If the rockets were flying true I guess they would certainly be able to reach. The footage is too low quality to say for sure, but there doesn't look like there's a deviation in any rockets during the boost phase - that would suggest to me either an early flame out or, a break up near the hospital followed by a mostly-freefall.

An early flame-out would leave plenty of fuel and probably wouldn't be discernible in the video footage, leaving it hard to prove.
I guess a late break-up or partial breakup and mostly freefall wouldn't be visible either if it's after the boost phase - also hard to prove

[open rain]

Rockets not only would have reached hospital by that time, they would be most likely over and kilometers away by the time of the explosion (for example - that interception happened something like 7.8 km (~further) away from the hospital (6km ground, 4.9km height), 7.3 seconds before the explosion). So, you need some rocket with a very unusual trajectory for it to get to the hospital.

[covert steppe]

Why wouldn't a premature shutdown of the engine be visible?

Unless it barely fired but then that's probably not enough thrust to get there

[sharp forge]

It might be visible, but in the video footage available they just look like flickering blobs of light. Hard to tell engine-out vs 'went behind a bit of cloud'

[covert steppe]

I see

[sharp forge]

At least, that's my barely informed take

[covert steppe]

The thing I don't like about the wayward rocket theory is it's too neat for my liking. I know every once in awhile the laws of randomness will supply you with the perfect storm but it just feels a little too perfect. That's just gut feels stuff ofc, no weight to it.

[open rain]

I feel like there is a need to calculate the maximum speed obtained by each rocket launched from the south west launch site, for the rocket speculation to be really closed.
Should be possible with the new, longer, Netivot footage.

[open rain]

I'm not sure how the version with rockets could still be considered a primary version - there was another strike less than 1.5 km away from the hospital 1.7 seconds before, at least 5 other strikes in 10 minutes before, and 8 strikes in 12 minutes after the explosion in the hospital. Most of those strikes were relatively close to the hospital. And there were at least two aircraft, one of which was still moving towards the general direction of the hospital ~14 seconds before the explosion (it started changing direction back towards the sea at that time). "They said it was not consistent with an airstrike" - have those experts taken into account that Israel has 250lb precision guided bombs (GBU-39 and Spice 250), or have that statement was based on assumption "airstrike -> 500lb bomb or heavier"?

We have footage for all the rockets launched (the longer footage from Netivot POV shared by Aric Toler). Their approximate speed at the end of the burn and the launch angle from the ground can be calculated from that footage (would not be easy), launch location and their approximate launch direction can be taken from the IDF map.
I think it is very likely that none of those rockets could have hit the hospital without a lack of speed (but then they would hit sooner), or a very weird trajectory (going mostly up, would hit later?) or both. And after looking at all the available footage multiple times, I have not seen any weird rocket in that barrage.

[open rain]

(I've lost my cool here, sorry)

[spice anvil]

yes, this would assume a functioning rocket, not a failure. the assumption here, as stated in every article, is a malfunctioning rocket

[spice anvil]

GBU-39s are typically bunker busters, and additionally would leave a much different blast aftermath that everything we see on the ground. an air to ground missile from a helicopter we can pretty much rule out, from an aircraft would also be very strange (precision targeting something in or around a hospital) and also probably not capable of producing the blast fireball we see

[spice anvil]

i highly doubt anything about those rockets can be derived from footage shot from that distance and of that quality, aside from their launch location and general direction and rough speed (for as long as you can see their motor burn)

[covert steppe]

Aside from rocket, composite body air burst is the only other candidate that seems suitable

[slow sky]

There are probably a hundred different types of non-big-boom munitions the IDF has access too. Blast analysis can only really rule out, not confirm?

[covert steppe]

With regards to source being IDF, not leaving behind casing, body, etc is a requirement given they weren't able to find one. Fuse being buried in the crater maybe but not beyond that

[slow sky]

True enough.

[open rain]

I am not an expert on this. Those few videos of failed rocket deployment from Gaza that I've seen can be split in two groups:

1. full power burn with wrong trajectory (either low angle, or changed trajectory during the burn because of some defect.
2. loss of power / slow burn - in cases I've seen, rocket engines were still lit up (highly visible), for a longer duration than well functioning engines.

I was not able to see rockets fitting these two categories of failures in the barrage that started 43 seconds before the hospital explosion, but I'm not sure if other relevant kinds of documented failures exist.

About GBU-39 - typically bunker busters but they have an air burst mode https://youtu.be/j09uoOvi1tk?t=79 , and GBU-39A/B (SDB FLM) has a composite body, smaller warhead (2/3 by weight) and is advertised for lowering collateral damage in urban environment. About the fireball - cars with fuel. Maybe couple of canisters of gasoline. Explosion did not look much different in brightness compared to other explosions that happened at ~ that time.
About calculating speed from the Netivot and Bat Yam footage - yes, maybe I am wrong.

UPDATE: I've misunderstood SDB FLM description on wiki. It has 3.8 times larger explosive charge by weight than SDB I (GBU-39/B), but of different type, no idea how they compare.

[open rain]

Any way, were the other 14 explosions around the time of the hospital explosion (most of them relatively close to it), and aircraft approaching in a general direction of the hospital, not included in the Washington Post article for lack of relevance? (I really would like to know why those were not mentioned)

[zealous sparrow]

only thought i had, figure out what caused the "other" explosions near the hospital. for example the one that visible on the n12 footage. it's a quite big explosion but no missiles or anything seen in that direction.

[open rain]

I was not able to see any incoming projectiles in the AJ broadcast that shows some of those explosions (for some of them you can only see a halo from outside of the frame, but that halo looks to be of a similar size). All those explosions looked somewhat similar to me (not an expert).
Except the hospital explosion had a "fireball", that looks larger and more continuous - possibly the smoke/dust cloud was highlighted by burning fuel from cars and a burning tree.

These two videos https://twitter.com/bernielomax/status/1715191982358720588, https://twitter.com/GrantSmithEllis/status/1714399186295111815 show bunch of those explosions from 18:53:41 to 19:11:45 (hospital explosion is at 18:59:46 AJ broadcast time), you can check the timeline with timestamps here: #1164615723755241472 message

This video has a good close up of the fireball after the hospital explosion: https://twitter.com/albertofierroal/status/1714379117695496324

2 more visible explosions (and possibly one outside the frame) close to the hospital from the same AJ broadcast ~30 minutes after the hospital explosion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jejlzXSp-G0

[shrewd dust]

The GBU-39 A/B has a warhead with 137 lbs of explosive. I don't know the NEW of this, but you'd see significantly more blast damage with that much high explosive. The blast also isn't consistent with this much high explosive air bursting. The trees above the one crater are intact and have only minor burn damage, and the surrounding buildings, including the roofs have very minimal damage.

Additionally 250 lb bombs are very well known, and have been around for a long time. Even before the Spike the MK 80 series, has a 250LB variant. I'm sure the experts the NYT talked to are familiar with then.

[open rain]

Thank you, it looks like I have misread and misunderstood GBU-39 A/B (SDB FLM) description on wiki. SDB FLM has 3.8 times larger explosive charge by weight than SDB I (GBU-39/B), but of different type, no idea how they compare, If this time I understood correctly.

[shrewd dust]

If you're referring to the GBU-39/B or GBU-39B/B they both contain 36 lbs of high explosive. But again, both warheads 205 LBs total (not all explosive), and would create a lot of fragmentation, and aren't consistent with the blast, airburst or not.

[open rain]

Can you say (or speculate) what kind of munition would be consistent with any/some of the 14 explosions in other locations during 18 minutes around the hospital explosion?

[covert steppe]

Again, would have to be composite shell which means less fragmentation

[shrewd dust]

I'm not going to speculate on that, there's so many factors that can go into different looking explosions or fireballs, combined with the terrible footage, and unknown distance.

@covert steppe Even with a composite shell there's still secondary fragmentation effects. The GBU-39A/B for example might be a "ultra low fragmentation" warhead but it's still 93 pounds of a high explosive.

[covert steppe]

We did see a lot of shrapnel marks on the buildings, glass, trees, roof, vehicles etc

[vocal sluice]

If the motor failed right after launch the trajectory would fit perfect with the timing. You can use this: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/projectile-motion

by the way: Failing rockets are not at all unusual for Hamas. If IDF numbers are to be believed they fail more often inside the Gaza strip than they actually hit targets in Israel. But what this means for us is there should be evidence of these accidents, that can be compared to the current blast. The situations should be fairly similar. https://www.timesofisrael.com/military-believes-failed-islamic-jihad-rockets-killed-four-civilians-in-gaza/

[covert steppe]

How are you getting the necessary parameters

[vocal sluice]

Just enter distance and time needed and start height of 0 and it will give you an initial velocity, when the motor cut out. I always get values around 200 m/s which sounds plausible for me.

[covert steppe]

Doesn't include air resistance and what about the launch angle?

And how does having a height of 0 work when projectile motion only describes the rocket after the thrust phase has ended?

[vocal sluice]

Of course its not possible to get all the parameters exactly right. This is a plausibility check to see if it was possible in theory. The motor probably failed at higher altitude than 0. But its impossible to know all these parameters.

[hexed sequoia]

It's important to understand exactly where your model differs from reality and how those differences affect the results.

[covert steppe]

Need to derive an upper lower bound of launch angles from the video footage, and need to figure out how high a rocket could be and still not show up on it (basically how "high" the horizon is in the footage relative to the launch site)

[hexed sequoia]

Damn, I was just about to comment that there are good ways to find upper and lower bounds.

You were faster!

[open rain]

I have started looking into those rockets launched before the hospital explosion, will possibly have something in couple of days. It looks possible to me to exclude flameout/slow burn for every one of those 17 rockets launched from the relevant launch site using this footage https://twitter.com/i/status/1714745483988435179
(take a note that 3 out of 20 rockets launched from almost the same direction on this footage were actually launched from another location, that is not relevant to the hospital explosion)

[shrewd dust]

The trees are still standing, with just minor burn marks. 93 pounds of high explosives would do more blast damage than that. If it was an air burst it was just marginally above the ground judging from the video of the explosion that was nearby. It damage just isn't consistent with an airbust explosion, or an explosion with a large amount of high explosive.

[covert steppe]

The palm trees are still standing yeah, but they are rather high up. Plus they're pretty flexible

[opaque spire]

Since the ultra low fragmentation SDB was mentioned I pulled this video up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmiELSNtuUs

It's conceivable that a palm tree could withstand that, no?

Doesn't really fit with the observed shrapnel damage though...

[covert steppe]

Why not?

Also, confirmed video elsewhere in the discord of airburst shells being used by Israel might add another possible munition

[opaque spire]

The pictures you highlighted showed quite a lot of shrapnel damage I think.

[covert steppe]

Indeed. Part of the issue is it's hard to tell whether it's from the weapon casing or whether it's from all the concrete and stonework that was blown out near the epicenter... Or a combination of both.

[opaque spire]

Yeah

[covert steppe]

Obviously photos aren't comprehensive, but just based on the visuals the shrapnel damage to buildings, trees, windows, etc is the worst to my eye in line where the stonework was blown out

[shrewd dust]

What video are you referring to?

[covert steppe]

#1160893738973929493 message

[shrewd dust]

That isn't a very good video as the video stops before the blast actually ends so you can't see the blast effects as easily. I couldn't quickly find any videos of SDB's that don't stop before the blast settles. However, you can see the SDB impact pretty much immediately to the left of the truck on the right. In the snippet at 0:08, you can see the vehicles have created significant shrapnel. That damage is clearly vastly more extensive just from what snippet we can see, than from the photos of Al-Ahli.

These images from https://www.reuters.com/pictures/pictures-hundreds-killed-gaza-hospital-blast-2023-10-18/ shows an overview of the blast site. The visible crater is under the group of people in the center of the frame. Much of the metal fencing near the crater is still completely. intact, despite being extremely close to the crater.

As far as shrapnel/fragmentation damage, a blast, even of block of C-4 placed on dirt can create fragmentation depending on what is around. Rocks, trash, construction material, can become fragmentation from an explosive device devoid of a casing. The damage to the roof doesn't look like significant fragmentation damage, but more consistent with a blast wave hitting roof tiles. Conventional military ordnance, such as artillery rounds, and bombs, leave behind significant pieces of the casing as shrapnel. It's not uncommon to find relatively intact fuzes, or base plates from HE rounds. It's actually a EOD safety precaution to ensure that any projectile rounds you are destroying have the baseplate facing away from your safe area, so you don't have a base plate whizzing towards you.

If you think it's a newer round with a composite low fragmentation casing, that was airburst, what do you think created the crater? Do you think the fuze survived the explosion and was propelled by the blast into the ground? If so where are the remnants of the fuze?

For reference, here is a explosives damage chart by FEMA. The Luggage is 50 pounds of TNT, Automobile 500, Van 4000, Truck, 10000 pounds. TNT is the base unit for NEW, so you can convert any other explosive to NEW if you know the TNT equivalency. https://www.fema.gov/pdf/plan/prevent/rms/426/fema426_ch4.pdf

[shrewd dust]

That video doesn't show a unique capability that wasn't unknown to the various experts approaching by the NYT/BBC, etc. 155mm/other artillery rounds have used MT/VT fuzes to airburst just above enemy positions since WW1 and WW2. 155 rounds are shipped without a fuze, and the shipping cap is removed and a fuze is inserted in the fuze well. JDAMs, 155mm, and Hellfires were all mentioned in the earliest reporting, with pretty much every expert agreeing the damage is most consistent with ordnance consistening of a heavy fuel/low explosive load such as a failed rocket.

[covert steppe]

That's a bit of a generalization wrt "every expert agreeing"

Wrt the fuze and crater:

Source for above section: https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/gaza-hospital-bombing-part-1

This is the author of the above article: https://twitter.com/MihajlovicMike

The article basically summarizes and elaborates in some his tweets concerning the explosion

[shrewd dust]

WaPo "None of the more than two dozen experts consulted by The Post was able to say with certainty what kind of weapon struck the hospital grounds or who fired it. But munitions experts agreed that the damage at the hospital was consistent with a rocket strike."
The only expert I've seen quoted that has said somewhat differently is Chris Cobb-Smith, and his quote/stance are slightly varied depending on the article. WaPo "The size of the crater and the blast bore some similarities to an impact from a 155-millimeter artillery round, a munition in the Israeli arsenal, said Chris Cobb-Smith, a security consultant and former artillery officer in the British army. But other weapons could do the same, and an artillery round would not have produced the fireball seen in the blast videos, he said."

And Forensic Architecture quoting him as saying "Our/
@CobbSmith's analysis of the crater size suggests a munition larger than eg a Spike or Hellfire missile commonly used by IOF drones. It is more consistent w/ the impact marks from an artillery shell—but w/o additional material evidence, we cannot make a definitive assessment."

I think he was also quoted in a third article, but I can't recall where.

I mentioned that fuzes can remain after a blast. If the fuze caused the crater, there would be pieces of it in the crater, and the crater would not be that large. An airburst fuze, the fuze would detonate in the air, and trigger the main charge, and not have explosive material left to explode after hitting the ground. It would essentially be getting pushed into the ground by the resulting explosion. It's wild that Mihajlovic is trying to say this crater is possibly caused by a small rocket, or artillery round, but also maybe just an airburst fuze? A fuze has very a very little amount of explosive.

[covert steppe]

This is the original tweet he made regarding the fuze and crater

https://twitter.com/MihajlovicMike/status/1715477927364633026

Think he's also thinking the airburst explosion itself would have also been transmitted to the ground: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F8xCO6TWcAA9-2I?format=jpg&name=900x900

(Tweet for above image here: https://twitter.com/MihajlovicMike/status/1714819686326505639 )

His observation about the potential pressure wave damage to the vehicles is one of the biggest reasons I personally think the airburst theory is still plausible.

Yes we know that roofs can sag with extended exposure to high heat but the effect seen on the vehicles in the courtyard extends to hatchback trunks, hoods, even parts of the frame, windshields farther away.

[shrewd dust]

Still reading, but his calculations for pressure is wrong. He's right to use TNT, as that's what NEW is measured in, but he doesn't convert 63kg of HMX (which he states he substitutes for AFX 1209 MBX) into TNT equivalency (NEW). The TNT equivalence of HMX is 1.56. I don't understand how he would come to the conclusion that HMX = TNT. It's explosives 101 that different explosives have different properties, one of the fundamentals is the difference in TNT equivalence. One pound of explosive X is not the same as Y, and Z. That's literally why TNT/NEW is used as the benchmark for safe distances, and calculating k-factors, etc

As far as vehicle damage, the vehicles clearly caught fire, and vehicle fires in close proximity can cause that damage to nearby vehicles.

[covert steppe]

Would be worth asking about that. Is this your field of expertise?

[shrewd dust]

Yes I was trained as EOD tech in the US Army. It's an extremely basic mistake that he shouldn't be making if he has actual training in explosives, which leads me to believe he doesn't. I tweeted him to ask about it, I'll let you know if he responds.

[covert steppe]

Could be that he's inflating his credentials? Unsure. You're right it's weird to mention the specifics like that and then make a trivial mistake

And yes large surface area sheet metal on vehicles can sag when on fire but again less so for frames and surfaces that aren't somewhat parallel to the ground

It'd be helpful to establish a time when the fires were extinguished. Per video it was still during the night.

[pine kiln]

You should also think about contact Giancarlo, when it's such an important error. Not that it's drowning in messages here.

[shrewd dust]

I just think he's stepping outside his expertise to be honest. His Linkedin just has 4 years as a Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Officer, and then 28 years as a engineer, analyst, writer. Most of his article just seems to be him summarizing or taking from the references he's listed. Also "mortar mines" isn't a term, and is just really weird wording.
@pine kiln Is that really important? I haven't really seen this guy cited much but I'm out of the loop.

[covert steppe]

Yeah I haven't seen him cited in any osint reports either

[shrewd dust]

Oh yeah he straight up plagiarized J, Thurman: Practical Bomb Scene Investigation, 3rd Edition, CRC Press that he cites. I have the second edition and it's verbatim:

"So, lets dive into the bomb scene investigation: When responding to a call to the scene of an apparent explosion, the investigator is required to have a working knowledge of a diverse set of disciplines. These include the ability to assess the incident to determine if, in fact, there has been an explosion and to identify the type of explosion; investigate the scene for evidence; identify bomb components; and recognize and document the dynamics of the explosion. The dynamics of the explosion involve what occurs when an explosive is initiated and the results of that initiation. In other words, given a quantity of explosives and a suitable method of initiation or fusing system, when an explosion occurs, what are the observable physical results? This explanation or knowledge assists the investigator immeasurably in understanding what he or she sees at the site of an explosion."

This is all directly copied from the introduction. same with his scientific method portion. Wouldn't surprise me if the other factual sections were plagiarized as well.

[open rain]

Could have been GPT-4? (no, could not have been)

[covert steppe]

Ah well that doesn't bode well. Good thing we have your eye on this material

[shrewd dust]

He specifically cites the book as one of his references, and one of the charts he has is from the page next to another part he copies.
Excuse the shitty scan quality.

[covert steppe]

Love this future we are living in

[open rain]

Yes, looks like he have just copied text - he would not get just a direct quote from the book from GPT-4 (at least without a lot of effort, and even then - unlikely).

[shrewd dust]

This is his substack:

[open rain]

I am unable to decide, if it have been better if he had copied the full figure caption, or not.

[shrewd dust]

To be clear, I'm not criticizing him for including the graphic(s). It's that he directly took several paragraphs and posted them as his own. He's a published author of multiple books and should know better.

[covert steppe]

Very odd for a person who attended Uni to just lift whole extended sections like that and not do like a block citation

[open rain]

About rockets and audio in the Hamdan video (https://fxtwitter.com/EekadFacts/status/1714617068765515795):
Do I understand correctly, that multiple booms in the first 13 seconds are sonic booms produced by rockets? (or is it some kind of weird result of engine flameouts?)

[pine kiln]

I don't know, you're the expert. The only thing from my experience is that such articles one day get cited as evidence and no one else is checking the facts anymore and all are getting hershed.

[shrewd dust]

He just hid my tweets and didn't reply when I asked about the lack of conversion for NEW and plagiarism.

[wary hornet]

Shall we all reply to it? As a uni student I am personally affronted by plagiarism, having had academic integrity drilled into me for years now 😉

[shrewd dust]

I would not bother personally. His post doesn't seem to be gaining much traction. I'd just urge to remember this if you see him cited as a credible source/expert, as he's clearly not.

[pine kiln]

Already did. We don't need another Pfarrer.

[shrewd dust]

Ok wanted to do one last post regarding Mihajlovic's piece and then I'm done with it because I don't want to stray too far off topic here, but I wanted to clarify something, and raise some points if someone wants to try and do similar calculations. I previously stated that TNT equivalence of HMX is 1.56, as that's what my source stated. Mihajlovic might have used this calculator https://unsaferguard.org/un-saferguard/kingery-bulmash. This calculator uses HMX to TNT as 1.02, and uses AATP-1 as it's source. Here's the TNT equivalent table from AATP-1. I don't know why there's such a large discrepancy between my original source's TNT equivalence of HMX and this one, as other explosives in the tables are the same, or close to. I also don't know why HMX is listed in the table between Minol II (1.2/1.11) and Octol 70/30 (1.06/1.06) when the calculator appears to use 1.02/1.03 for HMX. C4 on the other hand is consistent between the calculator and source table. It doesn't really make much of a difference, as there's no basis to assume that HMX is a good substitute to use for AFX 1209 MBX. I haven't been able to find a NEW for AFX 1209 MBX so far.

Mihajlovic clearly copies from the calculator's page, "provides data for incident pressure, reflected pressure, incident impulse, reflected impulse, duration of positive pressure phase, time of arrival of the shock wave and shock front velocity." But he then adds "combined with the desired blast altitude". The calculator he uses specifically states *This calculator is based on the Kingery-Bulmash equations used to model a hemispheric, surface explosion, and should not be used for applications requiring the calculation of values for a spherical burst in the air.

[covert steppe]

WRT the airburst idea, there is precedent for Israel using the DIME bombs in Gaza: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/tungsten-bombs-leave-israel-s-victims-with-mystery-wounds-1418910.html

Per wiki:

[opaque spire]

Honestly not surprised. I’ve always been weary of the guy given his pro-russia views on Ukraine (he’s from Serbia).

[nova zealot]

He added sources for the "Scientific Methods" section and through-out, but not to the calculator as I see.

[sly kraken]

would this be similar to the m30a1 with alternative warhead we've seen used in ukraine? if so it also doesnt match the fireball

[shrewd dust]

No, the M30A1 has a ton of tungsten balls, and the damage is pretty distinct, as seen in the picture. https://www.army.mil/article/180724/new_munitions_replace_cluster_bomb_rounds_that_pose_danger_to_civilians

It's not that there's no precedent for use of DIME munitions, is that the blast damage isn't consistent with that airburst or not.
The most visible blast damage is the metal/stone fence near the crater. There is no damage similar to a DIME munition reported in injured/killed people, or on nearby objects.

@opaque spire posted a video of a SDB test a couple days ago. #1164615723755241472 message
Here's a link to the paper on possibly that specific test, that has a lot of good info on the SDB and blast effects. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA513882.pdf

[modern urchin]

Are/were you 89D MOS? Really appreciating the expert EOD insight rather than just amateur speculation. Keep it up!

[covert steppe]

DIME micro shrapnel itself wouldn't leave highly visible damage at the site if my understanding is correct? Especially since all we have to go off of is photography and video, which will easily capture the damage from larger pieces as opposed to something like micro shrapnel.

Wrt the DIME effects on the bodies, it hasn't been reported but, given the chaos in Gaza right now, it's not outside the realm of feasibility that it wouldn't be at this point, especially given clean up of the remains was done very quickly.

I do recall that there was a very high degree of dismemberment which is consistent with micro shrapnel.

[shrewd dust]

From the article I linked above. The mannequin is covered in tungsten residue. The article you posted above mentioned distinct wounds from the powder as well.

This source cites destructive blast zone as just a few meters wide. Which is also inconsistent with the blast. https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0142_SEWALL_CHASING_SUCCESS.pdf

Dismemberment is consistent with explosives, and fragmentation, secondary or not. The most destroyed feature at the hospital is the stone and metal fence, a significant source of fragmentation capable of dismemberment.

There's no evidence it's a DIME/FLM, all the evidence so far is consistent with conventional munitions, such as a failed rocket.

[covert steppe]

I wish we had a drive with categorized photographic and video evidence; links, pictures, etc are getting buried with time and it makes it hard to refer to this or that when making arguments

[nova zealot]

@shrewd dust (This is mostly curiosity, btw) The first explosion here, I assume is some sort of bunker buster. I've also seen SDBs that have similar explosions, but I haven't actually been able to see what crater and damage from them would look like. What sort of munitions is this and are there any SDBs in the same category as this?
https://vxtwitter.com/IDF/status/1717840051491541077
My problem with the damage is that the shockwave would need to be many many times larger than what a designed 30kg solid fuel explosion causes. Eg the hole is consistent with a 10kg explosives according to french intelligence, so what's the actual munition this is consistent with?

[open rain]

10kg - Qassam 2 and Quassam 4 would fit (according to wiki).
But I do doubt that would fit the damage to the walls that can be seen.

Some of my (non-expert) impressions:
Here (Hamdan video) initial fireball at (explosion at 00:00:26.760, initial large looking fireball at 00:00:26.793 becomes smaller by 00:00:27.561 (delta 0.8 seconds)) https://twitter.com/EekadFacts/status/1714617068765515795
Here (closeup from a balcony with metal grill/grid) explosion at 00:00:5.733, a pretty large looking fireball is in frame at 00:00:6.533 (delta 0.8 seconds)) https://twitter.com/manniefabian/status/1714378434623795248
Here (AJ camera) explosion is just too bright initially (at 00:00:17.617), buildings with white wall behind it do not help https://twitter.com/Eysegal/status/1714380683995402699

oh, just noticed that you can see decoy flares at 00:00:6.167 on the "closeup from a balcony" video

[shrewd dust]

Why are you thinking the damage would have to be much larger than 30kg of fuel? Propellant ranges in TNT equivalence, but even on the low end it's .3 of TNT, so 30kg of X propellant can be about as effective as 10kg of TNT.

This article cites French DRM as say it was a charge of about 5 kilos, I don't know if they are saying it was a warhead of 5kg or the total explosive weight. https://www.reuters.com/world/french-military-intelligence-says-israeli-strike-not-behind-gaza-hospital-blast-2023-10-20/

@open rain 10kg could fit the damage to the walls. I previously posted this, https://www.fema.gov/pdf/plan/prevent/rms/426/fema426_ch4.pdf. It cites "Failure of concrete block walls at Incident
Overpressure (psi) 1.8 – 2.9"
5kg TNT at 3m in this calculator https://unsaferguard.org/un-saferguard/kingery-bulmash, is an incident overpressure of 383.69 kPa or 55.64 psi

I quickly estimated this line as 25m. It's likely a little off but I wanted to give some context to blast effects. (This calculator doesn't factor in fragmentation) https://unsaferguard.org/un-saferguard/blast-damage-estimation
This calculator estimates that buildings at approximately 9m away from 5kg of TNT would require repairs, serious inconvenience, but remain habitable.

[nova zealot]

@shrewd dust Gonna PM you shortly. (Was about posting the video with a 30kg explosion. But since it contains some details I feel I shouldn't post it)

[nova zealot]

So, some stills from the video, as I judge it being slightly too detailed, (before, detonation w/fireball, after) plus one just to show it's violent, plus the "crater" which is not a good reference because it's soil. This is 30kg of a comparable explosives of the rocket fuel used in qassams etc. Slightly more effective nitrate.

So, I think the damage here is incompatible with the indoor damage, 100-250 people being killed (US estimate min, anonymous doctor max), people being killed indoors (first doctor witness), indoor damage to the "blue building" and the "corpse in hallway" (which I haven't been able to locate where is but can't be in the minimum diameter), etc. So that's why I think 30kg of solid fuel is too little. 🙂

[open rain]

I am not an expert on explosions at all, just have some unsupported intuitions (that I do not trust). When I mentioned the damage to the walls, I had the attached image in mind (was not able to find in a better quality, by REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri), showing a lot of impacts that look significant for ~25 meters of distance. Can you share your thought on those impacts? Are those impacts more likely to be from the pavement at the crater, or from fragments from the body of the projectile? (just curious)

[nova zealot]

Also, must say I appreciate the patience and answers @shrewd dust - since I'm the-opposite-of-expert it's great to have someone to put down my takes. So I hope you don't feel dogpiled 🙂

[shrewd dust]

A few differences between this video, and Hamas/PIJ construction. Hamas, and PIJ has been cited as casting their propellant, and inserting it into their rocket motors. They've been reported as using ANSU, but also receiving training from Iran in creating more efficient propellants, pg 6. https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library---content--migration/files/research-papers/irans-new-approach-to-missile-proliferation.pdf This casting process, along with the stronger container is going to create higher pressures and blast effects than a bag or plastic container, especially. I unfortunately can't find a single source that even estimates how much propellant Hamas/PIJ use in any of their rockets, so if anyone comes across a source that says so I'd appreciate it. As far as people being killed inside buildings, that's definitely due to fragmentation. This also doesn't have to be an either/or scenario. It is entirely possible, I'd argue likely, that the explosion was the result of a main charge (warhead) as well as some amount of left over fuel.

@open rain All those impacts are from fragmentation. Explosions cause damage by the pressure wave, and from objects/materials getting pushed by that wave (fragmentation). I specifically stated that 25m figure is for damage caused directly from the pressure wave and didn't include fragmentation into the calculation. It could be from pieces of the fence, like rock or metal, or other material that was on the ground or close to the blast at the time. It could even be from the ordnance casing itself.

[nova zealot]

Would the fireball be much greater when cased?

[open rain]

@shrewd dust (yes, I've read and understood that you were talking about the about the blast / pressure wave, that is why I've made it more specific about what kind of damage I was thinking about when I said "But I do doubt that would fit the damage to the walls that can be seen.", and specified that my doubt comes from intuition that I do not trust on this).
Thank you for explanations.

[lapis geyser]

Nice Le Monde piece, nothing too revelatory:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/03/explosion-at-al-ahli-hospital-in-gaza-new-findings-from-our-investigation_6224647_4.html (https://archive.ph/3qy3t)

[covert steppe]

Paywall. Do they show their calculations or at least the assumed variables for the trajectory?

[coarse sundial]

There's an archive link following the Le Monde link

[covert steppe]

Ah sorry I missed that

[lapis geyser]

CNN the first of the previous outlets who put out visual investigation stories to do a correction on the Israeli interceptor: https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/02/middleeast/al-jazeera-video-gaza-hospital-blast-intl/index.html

[open rain]

Here are two images, one from this article, showing aircraft trajectories, and another of a map with projections from the Bat Yam camera for every visible set of decoy flares (red lines - for the first aircraft, green lines for the second, yellow line is very approximate direction of approach, by the time the second aircraft is launching flares at those 4 green rays that are close to the hospital - it is already in the process of changing direction).

[spice anvil]

appreciate all your expert input, great stuff

[zealous sparrow]

totaly agree, interesting to read too!

still find it a bit silly that cnn has to stick to their likely a failed rocket story, when they actually say "we got no clue"/"there is no evidence".

[delicate dome]

Thanks a ton for sharing. Since the OSINT is so far is inconclusive, would analysis of Israeli SOP and Gazan rocket makeup, efficacy and failure record would be warranted and germane, or speculative and not useful?

[shrewd dust]

@nova zealot Generally, It should be less than the same thing uncased, as confinement increases the explosive effects. But the purity of the explosive material, and the type of explosives involved effect whether there's a fireball and how significant.

This article shows how the same explosive (in name) can vary in power based off the quality of the components.
https://hero.epa.gov/hero/index.cfm/reference/details/reference_id/7689292

[white topaz]

My understanding is most people are satisfied this was a ground level, not an airburst explosion. The damage to car roofs has come up. Based on looking at pictures of car bombings, it appears that this seemingly top-down damage to car roofs can come from ground level explosions. (Images from Iraq)

The damage to the roofs of these two cars (the two on the right in the first photo) is much more pronounced at the end pointing to the explosion, and there also seems to be more damage than you'd get from fire and gravity

I think there are a few bits of visual evidence for an untrained eye that this is a ground level explosion:

• Part of a metal top rail of the fence is bent up away from the impact crater, not down like I'd expect if the blast came from above.
• A concrete post is partly destroyed but the concrete base it's on is barely damaged nearby. If the blast occurred above ground level, the base should have been much more exposed to the blast.
• Of the tree that was mostly destroyed, the parts that weren't were approximately radiating out from the direction of the impact crater.

I hope I'm adding something new. Sorry if not. I do have quite a collection of photos from the scene now.

[covert steppe]

Are these photos in a shareable drive or something?

[white topaz]

If it's the "corpse in hallway" photo I'm thinking of, it was a little behind the orange chairs in the right of this photo

[white topaz]

No. Is there a best way to do this?

[covert steppe]

Unsure of best practices here in that regard. I'm sure someone who knows will chime in later

[nova zealot]

Ah, thanks. Looks about right. Also, your perspectives are fresh so don't worry. This type of detail hasn't been debated too much.

[wild smelt]

The cleanest, best way to do things is a link to the original source, and then mirror that link on archive.org

It's important to show where files come from and where they are hosted as that's meaningful

[toxic mural]

When were these photos taken? That shot of the impact crater seems a bit deeper and larger than previous ones I have seen, but I definitely haven't looked exhaustively, just something that jumped out at me when I saw these.

[open rain]

Some additional images (two of them are large PNGs, not sure were I've got them from)

[covert steppe]

perhaps upload them to archive, have spreadsheet with links to source, links to archive, any relevant meta data that needs to be mentioned?

[queen blade]

without knowing the source of these images, I'm not sure they are useful.

[pine kiln]

I've seen them before

[white topaz]

The 18th (the day after the explosion), which is when almost all of the photos were taken. I guess it's the different angle.

[white topaz]

I should've kept a spreadsheet when I collected them… It's often the case that the source is a CDN URL that I'm the first person to ever request (to get a high resolution version), but I found the image on a news site after finding it on one of the photo providers (AP Newsroom, Reuters Pictures etc.). This would be easier for someone who has full access to the photo providers and can simply get the full resolution photos from them.

[nova zealot]

https://vxtwitter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1724525673325199410

[sly kraken]

https://vxtwtter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1724525692925157614?s=20
seems like they're walking back their first claim that it was a JDAM - a welcome update now that it's better known that things are lesser known

one thing that differentiates quality groups is being able to change perspectives with new info

[queen blade]

did they make that claim...? I don't remember seeing it

[sly kraken]

they claim its inconclusive but likely from israeli artillery or maybe an atgm - from their last report

https://vxtwitter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1715422493274427414?s=20

[queen blade]

I think that's an exaggeration of what they claimed.

https://vxtwitter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1715422507283443898

they simply say the crater suggests the munition was larger than a spike or hellfire and then say without any other material evidence they cannot make a definitive assessment. nothing in today's posts by FA walks back this statment imo

(didn't intend to be rude @sly kraken, just didn't remember them making the JDAM claim at all)

[sly kraken]

no worries, was also a bad statement from my end too

[shrewd dust]

"Our/@CobbSmith’s analysis of the crater size suggests a munition larger than eg a Spike or Hellfire missile commonly used by IOF drones. It is more consistent w/ the impact marks from an artillery shell—but w/o additional material evidence, we cannot make a definitive assessment."
They claim it's larger than a Spike or Hellfire missile, and more consistent with an artillery round. Which is a weird claim for several reasons, because it's not consistent with any of those, and of the HE/HEAT Hellfires (AGM-114 series), all have more explosive weight than a HE 155mm by a few pounds. Cobb Smith isn't a credible expert imo.

[covert steppe]

The age old problem of not having enough knowledge of a field to know when someone actually has knowledge of the field.

[shrewd dust]

Not to mention the explosion isn't consistent with any of those munitions, but the larger claim is easily shot down. If he's claiming it's something larger than a 155MM like from a MLRS, I don't really have words because that's extremely outlandish.
Here's some sources for the explosive weights.

Israel uses the M107A3 round. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2023/08/04/israel-orders-tens-of-thousands-of-155mm-artillery-shells-from-elbit/
Jane's and an archived General Dynamic page give the explosive weight for the M107. The M107 can have a COMP B or TNT explosive filler. GD states 14.6lbs of COMP B, Jane's says 6.985 kg (15.4 lbs) of Comp B or 6.62 kg (14.6 lbs) of TNT.
https://archive.org/details/Janes_Ammunition_Handbook/page/n498/mode/1up?q=m107
https://web.archive.org/web/20201125223353/https://www.gd-ots.com/munitions/artillery/155m-m107/

CSIS cites Hellfire warheads ranging 8-11kg for payload (17.6 - 24.25 lbs)
https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/agm-114-hellfire/

[queen blade]

Any particular reason why you Cobb Smith isn't credible (aside from this specific claim)? Just curious

[shrewd dust]

I'm only familiar with his comments on the Al-Ahli explosion, but his comments do not line up with being an explosives expert, that he is representing himself to the media outlets as. There is nothing about the explosion at Al-Ahli that should lead any explosives expert to think artillery shell, and thinking artillery shell because a warhead impacted the ground and created fragmentation makes no sense. The evidence indicates something with a fuel/low explosives component. It's not like he's even claiming it was a rocket assisted projectile (RAP) to at least slightly match the fuel evidence. Additionally, rocket, and missile warheads, as well as artillery rounds all look relatively similar, and as a result can create similar fragmentation damage.

His statement that he believe it's larger than a Hellfire or Spike, which the Hellfire series all have more explosives than the 155MM HE round, is also just weird. If he actually knows the warhead weights for Hellfires, and knows they are more than 155MM what artillery shell is he claiming it is? MLRS isn't an artillery "shell." I don't know anything about the Israeli Navy, but a quick search looks like they only have 76mm Naval Guns (and missiles, but were talking about "shells" or projectiles). There's no shell consistent with his belief that it's artillery shell (AKA projectile), yet bigger than a Hellfire. If he doesn't know Hellfires have more explosives then a 155MM HE, literally no one should be asking for his explosives opinion

[queen blade]

Okay, just wanted to hear your thought process

[modern urchin]

Not sure if there’s anyone from Forensic Architecture in the discord (maybe one of the Mods or Bellingcat folks know) but perhaps would be worth informing them… idk.

[vocal sluice]

Their sound analysis also had major errors, should be retracted probably.

[nova zealot]

The analysis on the crater was on the crater alone. The "consistent with" comment has been IMO interpreted too far, as it doesn't mean exclusively consistent with. If you look at hellfire/spike craters you know they aren't deep.

[spice anvil]

I think Cobb-Smith was a little irritated by how his analysis had been summarized in public. When we spoke to him he was basically in line with the assessment that an artillery shell wouldn't cause a massive explosion and would leave more fragmentation that was visible at the scene

[split hare]

Same when we spoke to him…

[queen blade]

ah

Thank you both for clearing that up

[tame agate]

Did anyone ever figure out where Netiv Haasara fit in with the timeline from the other videos ? This one https://twitter.com/manniefabian/status/1714377828131553446

[open rain]

Explosion that you see in it happens ~23.3 - 23.4 seconds before the explosion at the hospital

[tame agate]

so this WSJ vid got the sync wrong iyo? https://www.wsj.com/video/video-analysis-shows-gaza-hospital-hit-by-failed-rocket-meant-for-israel/120A1C22-BA32-418E-8837-BC4141FEFB00

I know it's old and a lot of info has come out since including the NYT piece etc, I'm just trying to retrace who got stuff wrong

The trajectory is different from what NYT and others on here established as well, as they placed the launch of the visible rocket from inside Gaza

[open rain]

Many people got sync wrong. I'll share a spreadsheet with timestamps for events for some of the videos a little later.

[open rain]

@tame agate Here is a published spreadsheet with timestamps of events in 8 videos https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQLXK56_Lq-TDVQ86HID-EO4HZtAjvmIaDu9AsOigbQT2PZMAgEj2c0QRaUu0SGQzbvtz0O0671Yunc/pubhtml#
It is/was work in progress, so its not in the best presentable form. DM me if you need access to the google sheets document.

[open rain]

@tame agate And a couple of observations that you will likely do not see in full in any of the published investigation to date:

1. Flares from 4 different aircraft can be seen on Bat Yam twitch footage, with one of those (ac2) doing a U-turn with closest point ~500-2000m ground distance from the hospital, from 13 seconds before the hospital explosion until the moment of the hospital explosion. (first two of those aircraft are mentioned in https://archive.ph/3qy3t , but with misleading illustrations of trajectories #1164615723755241472 message)
2. There were at least 15 explosions (including the hospital explosion) in interval from 7 minutes before to 11 minutes after the hospital explosion. - they are listed in the spreadsheet I've shared.

[open rain]

That intercept missile that explodes in the air ~7.3 seconds before the hospital explosion has no relation to the hospital explosion, it is launched from the Iron Dome Site at ( 31.458204, 34.520668 ) and explodes somewhere over ~300m radius circle with the center at 31.475798, 34.515598 at altitude of ~4800-5200m (at ~9065m (direct line distance) from the Hamdan POV, based on sound of it's explosion arriving 26.427 seconds after)

[tame agate]

Yes I agree it was an interceptor and didn't cause the hospital explosion

[zealous sparrow]

yeah i had a big discussion with one of them from WSJ

i did the geo in fdov's document* for that security camera footage, and it was completely off, and complete misinformation from WSJ to sync the explosion with the others.

i tried to geolocate the actual explosions and have a rough idea, but it's really difficult because the information about the night is such a mess

WSJ reporter who worked on the video in their response to me about syncing it up: "i was taking it out of context".

besides the awful sync, it's also this shot, that in my opinion is just misinformation

i was looking at the 2 yellow circles (and stuff in between).

🥲 i'm still officially pissed off with the wsj folks telling me "to watch the entire video" after spending several days on it.

https://x.com/fdov21/status/1715308495375929783?s=20
that screen shot is from my own work in progress while trying to understand the different footage while i was trying to support fdov on this document and his map.

[tame agate]

Sorry, could you explain what exactly is misinfo in this shot? The camera locations ?

[zealous sparrow]

the arrow, the view doesn't look towards the hospital

the arrow points as if that is the direction of the camera, while its much more like the corner of the view

[tame agate]

Right yeah

[open rain]

Why do you consider this specific image to be misinformation?

[zealous sparrow]

light green is the direction of the hospital

yeah but that's the essence they make it look like it's footage of the hospital explosion, while it's not

the only connection it has, is that it shows the same rocket barrage. and it cuts of 1 or 2 seconds before the actual hospital explosion (if i remember correctly)

misleading might be a better word?

[open rain]

Yes, I misunderstood initially what you were meaning by this being misinfo in this case. (and have not considered what it was supporting)

[open rain]

HaAsara footage cuts 12.437 seconds before the hospital explosion (at least the one I have (let me know if you have a longer one, my is 29.780 sec long)).

[zealous sparrow]

naah it's the same i remembered incorrectly

[open rain]

Explosion n12 - is the one from HaAsara and Netivot footages (I'm not an expert at this, there should be some imprecision), I think it close enough to the top right circle on your map.

[zealous sparrow]

yeah that's what i based it on
but it's a bit loose, when aric told me n12 wasn't to be trusted, i stopped it, because of lack of footage

[open rain]

You know about the full/long n12 footage, correct? https://twitter.com/malachybrowne/status/1717649922122453111

And take a look at this for timestamps in multiple videos (links are in the videos tab):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQLXK56_Lq-TDVQ86HID-EO4HZtAjvmIaDu9AsOigbQT2PZMAgEj2c0QRaUu0SGQzbvtz0O0671Yunc/pubhtml#

[zealous sparrow]

yeah i seen it all 🙂

[open rain]

Hm.. those violet lines.. do you have some footage from Sderot POV?

[zealous sparrow]

should all be in fdov's doc, those come from his map

[open rain]

Oh, I guess those are lines from supposed location of a launch site and from the hospital towards center of Sderot. No new footage mentioned in the doc.

[valid oriole]

Correct. Direction from the IDF-map of the launches.

[open rain]

Does anyone have a "1 hour later" Netivot footage (starting with 19:59:05 time on the screen) of a better quality or same quality but a different source than the one posted by a propaganda/disinfo account here: ||https://twitter.com/Partisangirl/status/1714514494117093398||

[white topaz]

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/26/gaza-findings-october-17-al-ahli-hospital-explosion

[hexed sequoia]

Why the reaction, @pine kiln?

[open rain]

Nice to see HRW mentioning strikes in some proximity to the hospital, that were happening at that time, but HWR miscounted them.
There were at least 4 explosions visible in AJ broadcast and 1 extra in Netivot footage, from 18:55 until the hospital explosion (~19:00).
At T-259.367s, T-99.533s, T-77.900s, T-23.317s (Netivot POV) and T-1.733s from the hospital explosion.
Those "both at 6:55 p.m" happened at 6.58 p.m. (here is a spreadsheet with timings https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQLXK56_Lq-TDVQ86HID-EO4HZtAjvmIaDu9AsOigbQT2PZMAgEj2c0QRaUu0SGQzbvtz0O0671Yunc/pubhtml#)

HRW mentioning aircraft releasing decoy flares is nice, though they just dismiss them with "HRW found no evidence that points to them being responsible for launching the munition that hit the hospital grounds."

"In one video, .. sound characteristic of a munition propelled by a motor, such as a rocket or a missile, can be heard." - I've heard similar sounding falling bombs.

They use "large air-dropped bombs" in the article 3 times, but they do not mention small ones.

[pine kiln]

errors

somehow reminds me of the countless articles investigating the nord stream pipeline. @open rain did a good summary

[zealous sparrow]

it's basically a really really long story for saying, we actually got no fcking idea

[hexed sequoia]

Fair point.

[open rain]

Some extra: there were 8 explosions in AJ broadcast footage, and ~35 explosions in El Debate footage ( with ~15-20 of them possibly outside of Gaza) in 11 minutes after the hospital explosion.

[zealous sparrow]

*“Authorities in Gaza and Israel should release the evidence of munition remnants and other information they have regarding the al-Ahli hospital explosion to allow for a full investigation.” * this is just plain idiotic at this moment

at this time it would be similar like Russia staging the "explosives" on a bench... too much time has passed.
Palestinian investigators at the site really really ruined the chance of ever getting more information about what caused it.

[open rain]

Well, it is likely that Israel has a lot of unreleased footage related to this event (from drones, for example), and/or numbers of intercepted rockets and those that exploded on the ground (possibly with specific locations).
So this call to release evidence is not only to authorities in Gaza.

[zealous sparrow]

yeah sorry i mean coming out with the fragments*

only reasonable explanation i can think of for the lack of fragments / small crater is it hitting through a car.

[open rain]

If someone knows the location of the camera used to record the part of this El Debate video, that shows events around the hospital explosion - please share it with me.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7r_CrUCZ8o
From 03:55:25.533 to the very end of the video is the relevant part (take a note that it is a different POV than the one at 03:55:25.533).

[bronze lynx]

This guy

[open rain]

I Agree, it would be nice if Hamas released whatever they have gathered there.
The “the missile has dissolved like salt in the water.… It’s vaporized. Nothing is left.” by Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas leader and deputy minister in the Hamas-led Gaza governing authority, might mean that they've lost those fragments (very possible considering Israeli bombings).

Or there were possibly no fragments found and collected, and Hamas official did not know that when he said that fragments will "soon be shown to the world."

[zealous sparrow]

my thought was: if it hit through a car, maybe a big part of the fragments never got out of the car causing it to "disappear"...

[bronze lynx]

Or they do not want to release rocket fragments and embarrass themselves, and raise attention to an incident it is believed the death count was severely exaggerated

I do not think we will ever see the fragments, at least we can't count on it

[open rain]

There was a lot of fragmentation damage around the crater and on buildings walls/roofs. Fragmentation on walls was possibly from paving stones, fragmentation pattern around the crater should be from munition itself.
Something should have been left from the munition, at least if it was not some kind of special munition made from composites (carbon fibers) - I have no idea what kind of fragments one should expect to find after explosion of a munition with carbon fiber walls.

[zealous sparrow]

regarding my above comment i was looking at that flipped car, transmission appears to be snapped off pushed "up" guessing that car would be quite close towards the explosion

[open rain]

Some of this deformation can be from when the car was burning while on it's roof.

[zealous sparrow]

oh ofc. but it's also know it flipped 🙂 guessing nobody parked it up side down.. i would have loved to know where it was originally parked

guessing something like that is most likely

[zealous sparrow]

got link for that image original?

[open rain]

I've got it from here: #1164615723755241472 message

[zealous sparrow]

btw the way the "green" car is pushed left.. i i find that "red" car flip a bit weird... but that's really not what i know much about, just gut feeling

[open rain]

I imagine that red car was pushed towards green, the rear end of the red was somewhat lifted up [with some rotation from the rear-right beingh closer to the explosion than read-left] before collision with green, collision with green imparted some additional rotation to the red car (with it's rear end somewhat in the air) causing it to flip sideways, and in addition it possibly slid down the green car.
So, not really back over front flip, but sideways-up push + (initial) right over (initial) left rotation as a result of rear-right getting more push up from the explosion then left, and left colliding with the green car.
Not sure if this description makes much sense.

[zealous sparrow]

yeah understand how you think, just doesn't fills the questions i have right away... (the open doors / what i think appears to be a transmition pushed "up")

[open rain]

Doors might have opened when it fell on it's roof or from it burning while it is on the roof (I have no actual knowledge to support this).
I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you speak about transmission being pushed up.

[zealous sparrow]

i think that's the part where the power goes from the engine towards the rear axels? but that's an assumption from trying to see what the pixels show me

[hexed sequoia]

I'm not sure where you're seeing parts of the transmission.

[open rain]

There might be some videos that show this car from a closer distance/at better angles.

[zealous sparrow]

this is a bit better, you see the "round" hole

[hexed sequoia]

Could be part of the driveshaft housing, yeah. Depends a lot on what model of car that is.

[zealous sparrow]

oh differential* might be the word i mean

[hexed sequoia]

Yeah, the rear differential connects the driveshaft to the rear axle.

[zealous sparrow]

but the driveshaft/differential appears to have "snapped" off? because you look into a "hole"..
similar to something like this:

[hexed sequoia]

The driveshaft itself is a solid metal rod. But it is surrounded by a housing, as you can see. Which is basically a pipe.

[zealous sparrow]

this is a bit better photo of what i think we look at

[open rain]

I'm not an expert on this (at all), can that hole be in some kind of housing for or part of the exhaust system?

[zealous sparrow]

naah exhaust you clearly see running through the middle, and is like a 5cm pipe?

[open rain]

(Ignore this) I mean, in this image there is a cavity for the exhaust pipe, can it be that the car from the hospital explosion, instead of a cavity has a "tunnel" for exhaust pipe to go through?

[zealous sparrow]

ahh that was the other word i was looking for the "subframe" 🥲 (i'm car idiot)... is also bent

[open rain]

Ignore this, I'm blind

This is the exhaust pipe, correct?

[zealous sparrow]

yes

these are the lines i was looking at when i say bend "upwards" (and circle for the rear axel "hole".

[hexed sequoia]

You can see the exhaust pipe continuing in an almost 90 degree angle towards the camera.

[lapis geyser]

Nice summary from HRW but nothing new really, I think basically all of that was already in the WaPo piece

[open rain]

If someone knows the camera location used to record the footage starting at 03:56 (same camera to the very end of the video) in this El Debate video https://youtu.be/B7r_CrUCZ8o?t=16697 please share it with me (I yet to find success in locating it).
Timestamps of various events in that footage (video id 10, El Debate) can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQLXK56_Lq-TDVQ86HID-EO4HZtAjvmIaDu9AsOigbQT2PZMAgEj2c0QRaUu0SGQzbvtz0O0671Yunc/pubhtml#

[zealous sparrow]

i geo-ed that daylight location i think

but never spend the time to check if it's still the same location after it goes dark

31.524733, 34.437911

[open rain]

I know where this tower is ( 31.526656°, 34.438395°). I know that the camera location I am asking for is not the same as the location for the daylight part of the video.
I know that none other El Debate live streams that are available on youtube feature footage from the same POV that I ask coordinates for.

[zealous sparrow]

my guess easiest way to figure it out is find out at what height a tower requires a warning light against planes

i remember that when i did the geo for this tower, i got like 30max results for towers of 10+ floors

[open rain]

Again, different cameras, different POVs, but thanks.

[zealous sparrow]

hmm i mean 3:55 got the 2 red dots*

or this from 5:13 should be geolocatable

btw you saw at 7:04 that it's an AFP lifestream?

[open rain]

If you are about 2 red dots at 3:56 - is some tower/mast that to the right from main events of that night from this POV.
Here is an image with imprecise locations of some events. Rocket launch site 2 is somewhere at ( 31.542869°, 34.453290°).

[open rain]

I've really tried to find this, I think it is possible that this is a relatively new building, and is not yet on google earth map.

[open rain]

Yes, but I have not looked at anything related to AFP yet. (I do not really know anything about that org)

[zealous sparrow]

could be worth looking if something like this can be geolocated

[open rain]

Thank you, will look at videos on AFP channel.

[zealous sparrow]

quite sure it's the same geolocation @open rain

afp actually got way more of the shots from the same location, but could be that the camera spins so much it gets confusing

[open rain]

The location those shots are taken from is very much not the same location I am looking coordinates for.
I have 3 more videos in "live" tab to scroll through (none of those I've already scrolled through contained footage from the same location that I am interested in).

[open rain]

Thank you, but I was not able to find any similarity between the footage I am talking about and any footage in "live" on the AFP channel or any other video on El Debate channel that I've seen.

Can you show me any frame from any other video, that you think is similar to any frame in https://youtu.be/B7r_CrUCZ8o?t=16697 after 03:56:00?

[valid oriole]

I noticed this: 31.269004, 34.279474 - while searching for something else.

[open rain]

Thank you, looks very similar, but not the same as #1164615723755241472 message and it's location does not fit, I think.

06:57:57.533 - The best zoomed out panorama view from the camera (it will slowly rotate from the leftmost position, to the right).
06:58:0.333 - the building with cylindrical storage is exactly at the center of the frame (two lights, far away, very small).
04:18:42.300 - rightmost view (camera rotates to it very fast).
05:04:30.400 - outline of something like a water tower (marked with blue on the attached image, marks are not very exact).

[valid oriole]

You can also try this one: 31.408312, 34.368151

Or this: 31.441394, 34.392203

[open rain]

I think these two do not fit also.

[valid oriole]

Have to call it a day. Will try to keep the silos in mind and nofity you if I find some more.

[open rain]

Thank you very much.

[open rain]

Candidate for the water tower: 31.341830, 34.325151

[spice anvil]

this is a great report and very comprehensive

[open rain]

The short white line just to the left from "rocket launch site 2" marks blinking lights that most likely are on the power plant pipes at ( 31.630806, 34.519997 ) - they have the same pattern (can be seen on Bat Yam footage).

[open rain]

Weird thing, the Netivot footage that aired on Channel 12 News and the "1 hour later" Netivot footage were both sped up exactly 1.6x times. Would like to know who posted the "1 hour later" footage first (highest quality one I've seen was posted by disinfo account ||@Partisangirl||)

[deep cove]

Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, in a zoom call with a clip shared on IG, talks about the Al-Ahli hospital explosion (https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0pYUzfItPm/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)
He says that a "new drone fire hellfire missile nicknamed Ninja" was used. That it was obvious it was a different type of missile. He saw a patient ||with a thigh amputation that looked like made by a guillotine. All around there were people with pieces of metal in them, rather than other injuries more consistent with other explosives||. By the end of the night there were 438 bodies counted.
He says the hospital was specifically targeted " That morning, when I arrived to Ahli, I was met by administrators who told us that despite the fact that they had received warnings from the Israeli army, and 2 warning missiles had been fired at the outside gate of the hospital, they had received assurances from the Bishop in the UK that he had been told by the Foreign Office in the UK that it was safe. But it was obvious that the selection of the hospital was a litmus test. The israelis wanted to test the resolve of the world to see whether this high profile hospital, if it's been attacked, what would be the response?".. and continues by saying that the response then led to other hospitals being attacked.

najwa_star

Dr @dr.ghassan.as Gaza War Testimony At AUB.
#doctor #doctors #doctorslife #doctorsofinstagram #medical #medicalstudent #medicalschool #hospital #hospitallife #hospitals #israel #palestine #gaza #gazaunderattack

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[shrewd dust]

So in his video he says that this Hellfire missile, nicknamed "Ninja", "it would fragment, the whole shell would fragment into discs that would cause amputations." So the Hellfire R9X, 'the blade' one has been referred to as Ninja, but there's nothing consistent with it's usage at Al-Ahli. The only explosive it has is the rocket propellant, so it leaves behind a significant amount of evidence of the missile because it just uses kinetic force to kill rather than explosive and primary/secondary shrapnel. There's also been no evidence of it's usage outside of US strikes. This article has some pictures of the remnants, and pictures of what a R9X strike looks like. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34146/this-is-our-best-look-yet-at-the-shadowy-hellfire-missile-with-pop-out-sword-blades

[open rain]

If it was something like hellfire missile, would not we see it's launch/flight?

[open rain]

Stumbled upon very basic description of an Israeli precision guided glide bomb that is even smaller than GBU-39:
FASTLIGHT (50 kg/110 lbs), designed for deployment from small platforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASTLIGHT

[shrewd dust]

There's just nothing to indicate it was a Hellfire at all, especially the Ninja/R9X variant. It just doesn't match the evidence. Hellfires are widely used, and widely known. They are a distinct munition. They've even been used in Gaza before by the IDF. For example, Amnesty International was able to recover a large, very distinct piece of the munition left over after a strike in 2008, and this was from a variant with HE, not just blades like the R9X which leaves behind even more intact pieces. It's abnormal, as HRW and I believe most of the articles on Al Ahli noted to not find any remnants, even with a fuel load. If you take the claim from Ghazi Hamad that the missile remnants just dissolved, then it either isn't a Hellfire, or it's not true.

Hellfires have at least a range of 8-11km away. I don't know how far the streams of that night cover around the hospital, I haven't followed that aspect closely outside of reading the news articles that cover the videos. Potentially a Hellfire could have been launched from it's platform (Apache/Drone) and then the rocket could have failed, and it fallen on the hospital. This would explain just the evidence of both a high explosive and fuel/low explosive presence in the blast. But I don't recall there's any testimony of helicopters or drones overhead around the time of the blast, and there would still be remnants of the munition even with a propellant load. France's DRM also estimated the blast was caused by a charge of about 5 kgs, which is half of the Hellfire warheads, not counting any potential explosives in a fuel load. You'd have to make a lot of specific assumptions while lacking evidence and ignoring available evidence to make any variant of the Hellfire fit the blast.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/012/2009/en/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/26/gaza-findings-october-17-al-ahli-hospital-explosion
https://www.reuters.com/world/french-military-intelligence-says-israeli-strike-not-behind-gaza-hospital-blast-2023-10-20/

[shrewd dust]

That doesn't have any fuel. It's just the high explosive, and according to an archived PDF, it's warhead is 77 pounds. https://web.archive.org/web/20171117201622/http://www.imisystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/fastlight.pdf

[open rain]

I can say that there were no missile launches visible on any footage in the relevant timeframe except for the intercept missile. If there was - it most likely would be visible on Bat Yam or AJ/Hamdan footage.

[rapid harness]

Here is a short thread by manniefabian that shows the damage caused by a Hamas medium range missile that hit beer sheva very well: https://vxtwitter.com/manniefabian/status/1732404329120932143

[rapid harness]

Is there anything that doesn't fit with a failed hamas/pij rocket?

[open rain]

Apparent lack of a launch of a rocket with weird enough trajectory to hit the hospital (there was no rocket climbing at weirdly steep angle).

As an extra - a lack of investigation into multiple aircraft, that were doing bombing runs at that time.
2 of those had relevant to the hospital explosion trajectories and timing, both were approximately on approach towards the hospital from the sea:
The first started doing U-turn ~2-3km ground distance from the hospital ~11-16 seconds before the T-23.4 explosion we see on the Netivot footage (that bomb would have been flying approximately over the hospital).
The second started doing U-turn ~1-1.5km ground distance from the hospital ~10-14 seconds before the T-1.7 explosion and the T-0 hospital explosion. (T-1.7 would have been flying approximately over the hospital).
There have been a bunch of other strikes before and after the hospital explosion at locations close to T-23.4, that would suggest that air-launched bombs were flying over the Al-Ahli hospital.

[vocal sluice]

Would all be much easier if the munitions remnants would not have "vanished into thin air"

[vocal sluice]

the rocket trajectory would not be weird. The launch by Hamas is timed in a way that would make it possible for one of their rockets to reach the hospital in time, if the engine fails after liftoff.

In my opinion the explosion is "settled" at the moment with most evidence posting to a Hamas rocket (while not being 100% certain because we don't have any evidence of rocket remnants).
So I would suggest we reduce new posts here to a minimum and only post if new evidence comes to light.

[open rain]

1. The place remnants were stored could have been bombed, or whatever.
2. No visible slowdown of rockets on ascent (or any visible indication of malfunction) - not sure where do you get the engine fail. And no weird trajectory.
3. In my opinion there is enough evidence to suggest that it is likely that the explosion was a result of an airstrike.

[onyx gyro]

Maybe a long shot, but does anyone have a centralized resource of all the various analyses in relation to this explosion?

[pine kiln]

You're in it. You will find here every article and theory linked. And maybe @open rain has a list.

[zealous sparrow]

Think fdov his thread on x contains most

[onyx gyro]

Thanks. I agree, this forum is a great resource. I'm just being a bit greedy and trying to find out if anyone has a compiled list they are willing to share

[pine kiln]

https://vxtwitter.com/fdov21/status/1715308495375929783?t=TNb0wzY0Rpqa1r3pC6YzuA&s=19

I totally forgot about that

[onyx gyro]

Amazing, thank you both so much

[open rain]

In addition to fdov21's thread, this one by Aric Toler is good too: https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1717015483843576248
Articles:
HRW: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/26/gaza-findings-october-17-al-ahli-hospital-explosion (discussed below #1164615723755241472 message )
Le Monde: https://archive.ph/mi6l4 (my dislike of trajectories #1164615723755241472 message )
WaPo: https://archive.is/Gksxt (discussed #1164615723755241472 message)
NYT: https://archive.is/LNF9P (discussed #1164615723755241472 message)
I consider all of them to be pro-Israel biased in the reporting of this event (though I do not think the bias is intentional).

Bellingcat [18 Oct]: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/18/identifying-possible-crater-from-gaza-hospital-blast/ (discussed #israel-palestine message )
Forensic Architecture [15 Feb]: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/israeli-disinformation-al-ahli-hospital/

On how the false "500 killed" was propagated in social media / news: https://www.silentlunch.net/p/did-the-entire-media-industry-misquote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-STt7vVyz4 a video about those aircraft mentioned in Le Monde and HRW articles, syncing Hamdan and Bat Yam footage (correct audio and correct timings, but from a person making videos for conspiracy theorists (9/11 truthers)). Take a note that the sound of aircraft they are pointing out is not the buzzing sound of a drone that can be heard at ~ the same time.

A spreadsheet with timings of events for a bunch of videos (likely for all known POV for the event): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQLXK56_Lq-TDVQ86HID-EO4HZtAjvmIaDu9AsOigbQT2PZMAgEj2c0QRaUu0SGQzbvtz0O0671Yunc/pubhtml

[onyx gyro]

Super helpful. Thank you so much!

[prime thorn]

https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1740419731499491346

Is the footage from 1:17-1:20 new?

[open rain]

That footage has no relation to Al-Ahli hospital explosion. It is from another time and most likely of another place.

They are just using some footage to illustrate that some rockets fail.

[open rain]

In addition, there is no reason to believe that PIJ launched a rocket that caused the explosion at the hospital.
At least I have not seen any evidence to support the claim that it was PIJ who launched the rocket barrage [17 rockets] from ~ ( 31.490707, 34.414611) that started at 43.4 and ended 30.1 seconds before the hospital explosion. (There was another, concurrent, rocket barrage [3 rockets] from a different launch site ~ ( 31.542869, 34.453290 ), that is to the north of the hospital, so, not relevant).

The rocket barrage with 17 rockets from ( 31.490707, 34.414611) is the only one that could have contained a rocket with any chance of falling on the Al-Ahli hospital (though I consider that chance to be close to zero for it would require that rocket to have a very steep climb trajectory, which is not not consistent with known visual evidence).

My guess is that the claim about PIJ being responsible was invented to fit the visual evidence from AJ broadcast footage, that contained a single "rocket" exploding as if over the hospital 7.3 seconds before the hospital explosion.
Only later it became understood that that "rocket" was actually an intercept missile launched from (31.458204, 34.520668) to intercept one of the rockets from the 17 rocket barrage, that missile exploded in the air ~6km ground distance from the hospital, and had no relation to the explosion at the hospital.

[rapid harness]

Where do you get that steep climb trajectory from? The huge fireball fits well to unburned rocket fuel which you would only get from a short and/or low powered burn, not a normal one that was aimed too steep.

[open rain]

We have footage of the barrage from 3 POVs - Bat Yam, Netivot and HaAsara - have you seen any of those rockets to climb slow and/or loose power at noticeably lower height compared to other rockets from that barrage?

If you plan to review footage, take a note that the 3 rockets that look unusual in Bat Yam footage are actually launched from a different launch site and in a different direction compared to other 17 rockets.

[nova zealot]

There's some agreement on the fireball being compatible with a failed rocket. But I must stress that this is not an exhaustive conclusion, meaning that it does not exclude Israeli mentions. And frankly due to the explosion being within a string of Israeli attacks that look exactly the same, of which we have zero comparable details, it would take conclusive evidence to exclude Israeli involvement.

(I'm late, but I have been on a break. I was also working on a longer list of interesting posts in this thread. But Xero nailed most of the major points)

[open rain]

The source for the fuel for the fireball might have been the car that was the closest to the impact - it's backside (with the fuel tank) was closest to the explosion, and it was pushed to the side and up, likely by the shock wave from the explosion, strongly enough to flip. Here is a description of how it possibly flipped [how I imagine it]: #1164615723755241472 message
In addition, it is not unlikely that the car had extra jerrycans of fuel or a "cooking gas tank".

[shrewd dust]

I don't know remotely enough about sound/audio analysis to even comment on that aspect, but that guy's threads are full of him just being confidently wrong on other aspects of this I don't think he should be taken seriously. Here's some things that immediately stood out to me:
His initial post, he claims the empty illumination round that hit Al Ahli on October 14th is "very much like a proximity fuse." https://vxtwitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1714539874701791503?s=20
Update 5 is also pretty bad. He takes this article and reaches the conclusion that all missiles only create "donut" frag patterns. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/9/8/how-successful-was-israels-iron-dome

"My bet but I should add, though, that the flattened car roofs look to me like it was a different weapon. The blast wave that hit the cars came from above. The rocket, scattering its fragments in a circle, exploded on the ground. The combination is kind of strange."
https://vxtwitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1715334505039314960?s=20

Update 7 I believe is him trying to say that that's what all Hamas/PIJ rocket impacts look like, which they have a range of rockets, and ignores the prevailing theory that a rocket hit Al Ahli with a fuel load, not at the end of it's trajectory.
Update 8 he's comparing vehicle damage, saying that because there's molten aluminum from a vehicle at Nova it's suspcious. There's videos and testimony of Hamas using RPGs against vehicles on Oct 7th which would explain fragmentation on the vehicle, also gunfire before/during/after the vehicle burned.
Update 10: "All evidence points to a deliberate helicopter attack." Munitions employed from helicopters such as Spikes and Hellfires are widely known, especially within Gaza. There's nothing consistent with their use at Al Ahli.
Update 11: "That's twice as fast as the max. speed of an Apache gunship but well in the range of a F-16 with a stall speed of ~85m/s afaik. Seems we're dealing with jets."

Even ignoring his troubled history, that thread alone is rife with issues, assumptions, and comparisons that aren't accurate. I don't think it's worth trying to dissect and correct him when he's so clearly off the mark in much of that thread. I certainly wouldn't trust him to be right on the Doppler analysis, which I don't know enough about to critically assess, when he did such a terrible job on the rest of his analysis, some of which I had professional training in.

Giancarlo already gave his spiel on citing him in a post you linked to. No need to ping moderators.
This man literally does not understand how low explosives work. https://vxtwitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1729335441923424291?s=20

[open rain]

I've decided to purge this conversation. [I've linked to the ||MichaKobs|| twitter account, which I was warned against previously here: #1164615723755241472 message ]

[shrewd dust]

I don't think that was a warning of it being a violation, more a warning of they've proven themselves not to be a reliable and objective source and to be wary of citing them. Just based off my brief glance of their thread I'd agree with that.

[open rain]

Yes, my reasoning is that if someone learns about that part of his analysis, and that part is correct, there would be a dilema - cite him and be associated with conspiracy theorists [and be ignored], or do not cite him which would not be very right.
By purging the conversation about this, I will know that I have not forced someone to make this choice.

[snow anvil]

Yeah Michel Kobs is not a good source, not worth taking seriously at all

[sly kraken]

(spitballing from a shower thought) maybe the launch site was obscured from view? we don't have a full 360 of the area

[open rain]

I'd expect to see any rocket launch from Gaza on the footage from the Bat Yam POV.

[shrewd dust]

https://vxtwitter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1758554979118297379?s=20

[pine kiln]

Vx seems not to work atm, so heres the thread https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1758563590406086960.html?utm_campaign=topunroll

[open rain]

It looks like they have removed that post, and reposted it [to edit something?].
A new link: https://fxtwitter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1758563590406086960

[shrewd dust]

Interesting. Direct link to their article which has more detail than thread.
https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/israeli-disinformation-al-ahli-hospital/

[shrewd dust]

@prime thorn #israel-palestine message
This analysis wasn't really discussed because it isn't really anything new, and is extremely narrow findings. The in air explosion claim actually being an interceptor and unrelated to the Al Ahli blast has been well established before this. NYT was the first, and just a week after the blast. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html Israeli claims have been critically viewed from the start, and not taken at face value. The claim that it was from this salvo and point of origin, has also been discussed before.

There's wide consensus among experts that the blast has characteristics of fuel load/low explosives. Either from IDF or PIJ/Hamas origin. Due to the high fuel load remaining when it hit the target, it'd be an atypical functioning of the munition, and not like most launches.

[shrewd dust]

FA states that all 17 visible rockets burning stop at roughly the same speed and distance traveled. The Al Ahli explosion is indicative of a high fuel load, so if the rocket came from this salvo you wouldn't expect the same behavior. Seeing as there's no other light sources visible, it probably just did a partial burn, with enough to be fired but without constant or complete consumption of the fuel.

FA's claim that:

Once a rocket’s propellant has started burning, it is highly unlikely that it will stop burning with fuel still remaining in its chamber.
It's a safety standard in demolition field when dealing with nonelectric demo, pyrotechnics, or propellant that if you have a misfire, you have to wait one hour before approaching specifically due to the possibility there may be some burning occurring, and a delayed ignition/detonation. That's a standard even when dealing with higher quality explosives, and Hamas/PIJ aren't working with the best quality explosives, or materials. This also goes against the evidence we have/don't have. There was high fuel load at the blast, and there's no visible light source (burning rocket) hitting the hospital.

FA's rocket expert states that:

The distance and speed of the rockets while flaring is consistent with an Arash or Grad rocket typically used by Hamas or PIJ.
The blast effects we see at the hospital isn't consistent with an Arash/Grad rocket. The Arash/Grad warheads (HE-Frag) have about 18kg/40lbs of high explosive, and fragmentation liners, where we would see more fragmentation, and more even fragmentation that was visible. The French intelligence estimate places the blast at about 5kg of explosives. It could have been a PIJ/Hamas domestic copy of a Grad/Arash, with significantly inferior warhead, or just something else.

I don't know enough about rocket trajectory/math, but I would be curious to see the plausibility of a Grad rocket being fired from that point of origin, with various levels of fuel consumption, how that would align with possibly hitting Al Ahli.

Also FA is being pretty one sided imo with mentioning Israeli's lack of providing conclusive evidence of anything on top of their disinformation, without mentioning the Hamas claim they had fragments of the munition, who later claimed "the missile has dissolved like salt in the water.… It’s vaporized. Nothing is left.”

[open rain]

[not an expert on explosions]
There were multiple explosions that evening, and al-Ahli hospital explosion did not look to me significantly different from other explosions. And the difference I've perceived can be explained by a burning palm tree and burning cars highlighting the dust/smoke cloud caused by the explosion.

There are videos that show GBU-39 [285 lb (129 kg)] explosions with fireballs that to my [non expert] eye do not look larger than what I see in footage related to the al-Ahli hospital explosion. - but I trust you when you say it to be too powerful for damage at the site.

There is a GBU-53/B StormBreaker [Raytheon SDB II] guided bomb that is smaller [204 lb (93 kg), though it has 105 lb (48 kg) warhead according to this interview https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/02/25/small-diameter-bomb-ii-completes-live-fire-test-destroying-t72.html ] - I have not found videos showing it in action. I've seen mentions that Israel uses this bomb.

Can you explain what existing evidence and thought process have been used by experts to come to a consensus that the blast has characteristics of fuel load/low explosives?

[shrewd dust]

You're going to see some type of fireball regardless, but high explosives are more chemically efficient and powerful. That fireball is going to be more minimal, and less visible and persistent. Low explosives also need confinement to detonate, rather than deflagrate, or "burn". So when you see a large and persistent fireball(s) as visible in the airshow video, with little to no blast effects, that's a very clear indicator you're dealing with low explosives/fuel.

It's just not the SDB or the SDB-II. Nothing about it fits. SDB's are just high explosives, much more explosives than the damage caused, and leave recognizable fragments behind. Yes, Israel has used SDBs. I haven't seen any evidence of use against Gaza in this conflict, but they used it against Hezbollah. The strike that killed Saleh Al-Arouri gives a good idea of what SDB strikes look like. Israel used 6 SDBs in that strike, on that single building. The AP link shows a video of the building after strike, twitter post shows the roof where the SDBs went in. https://vxtwitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1742988505851343146?s=20
https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-beirut-explosion-suburbs-hezbollah-israel-2a43fe948e8cb49c64b34bb963d77f64

Al Ahli Blast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGG8R8t7cCo
Other Gaza night bombings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGgbSK4mzc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbIvz1kEXb8
Air Show gasoline being detonated: https://youtu.be/a45U464NVGU?t=65
SDB: https://youtu.be/EkC-p5AsZ_A?t=6
https://youtu.be/TwYXoD3HS-s?t=10

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/9/bomb-disposal-squad-in-gaza-face-risks-amid-little-protection
SDB from 2021.

[open rain]

Here is a little better quality video for Al-Ahli explosion [same footage]: https://fxtwitter.com/manniefabian/status/1714378434623795248
Here are videos of an airstrike recorded from Al-Quds hospital [the same day, or day later as Al-Ahli explosion]:
https://fxtwitter.com/zoo_bear/status/1714768707640316126/video/1
and this one, showing an aircraft deploying decoy flares in this event https://fxtwitter.com/zoo_bear/status/1714768707640316126/video/2

Do you see significant difference between the Al-Ahli hospital explosion, and explosion from an airstrike recorded from Al-Quds hospital?
If so, can you explain how they are different?

[open rain]

If someone has a version of the Hamdan Eldahdouh footage that is of better quality than this: https://fxtwitter.com/EekadFacts/status/1714759915695145453 ,
please share it with me.

[lapis geyser]

No one does, sorry. There was a big search for this but no one else archived this footage from the Al Jazeera journo before he deleted it.

[pine kiln]

Xerof tried to get this footage from FA cause he thought it's better, but they didn't respond to him. Maybe it needs a pro to ask. https://fa-public-assets.fra1.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/IsraeliDisinformation/GIF 2 - Methodology - Camera Tracking.gif

[spice anvil]

Whatever hit Al-Ahli may or may not have been a rocket from that salvo but it's not possible to know from the videos we've all seen whether those rockets were responsible or not. Just because a rocket flare is no longer visible in naked-eye video such as those under review doesn't mean that a rocket didn't fail, with leftover propellant, and fall on Al-Ahli, given the trajectory and necessary time. There are existing videos showing such a thing happen in exactly that fashion.

[sinful plaza]

The best investigation to date on the Al-Ahli hospital explosion out of those I've seen.
[An analysis of the relevant rocket barrage, an analysis of trajectories of aircraft that were doing bombing runs with the hospital being in line with their target location, a Doppler shift analysis with an attempt to fit various scenarios to observed data]

Part 1 [Main]
https://ararmaher.wordpress.com/2024/02/13/how-the-media-misled-the-public-about-who-was-behind-the-attack-on-al-ahli-hospital/

Part 2 [Doppler shift analysis]
https://ararmaher.wordpress.com/2024/04/23/doppler-shift-analysis-leaves-no-doubt-an-idf-aircraft-is-behind-the-al-ahli-hospital-massacre/

[shrewd dust]

Just wanted to touch on some mistakes from the explosives/SDB angle.

1. This isn't a GBU-39, it's a SPICE-2000 kit on a 2000 pound bomb.

There are good reasons to suspect Israel has used a GBU-39A/B bomb to target the Al-Ahli Hospital. This bomb, shown in Image 1, is a variant of the GBU-39. The main difference lies in the use of a composite carbon casing instead of a steel one. This casing disintegrates upon detonation leaving no fragments behind.

2. A GBU-39A/B, would still leave fragments behind. It has the same metal wings and tail actuation section of the GBU-39 series that are almost always found intact after use. The GBU-39A/B also coats the surrounding area, including people with the tungsten powder fill.

3. Those fragments don't look like the SDB wings. There was also a Gaza Bomb Tech photographed at the scene the night of the explosion digging in the crater, looking for fragments. Ridiculous to think he would have missed the most obvious SDB components, with rocks still there. It's also extremely unlikely anything at that crater was undisturbed by the next day. Israel has used SDBs since at least 2014 in Gaza, and Gaza EOD had unexploded SDBs, and SDB fragments in an explosives museum that was open to the public that they gave tours of.

There's probably more but those are the three main things that really stood out to me when I read his posts however long ago.

[sinful plaza]

I too am not convinced about the specific munition, but the analysis about the rocket barrage, trajectories of aircraft and the Doppler shift analysis seem right to me.

He speaks of two explosions [~23 and ~1.7 sec before the hospital explosion] calling them First and Second - there were at least 2 more airstrikes at that location ~78 and ~100 seconds before and two more ~247 and ~271 seconds after the hospital explosion in that area [close to the First and the Second] - I think mentioning these would have improved the investigation a bit.

[hidden forge]

https://vxtwitter.com/forensicarchi/status/1846967386001355214
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1846967386001355214.html?utm_campaign=topunroll

[sly kraken]

https://x.com/ForensicArchi/status/1846967389801312756 think this might be a better fit for #bombs-arms-drones-other-killing-machines, what would they be referring here was a "fragmentation bomb"? Wouldn't all bombs/shells be some kind of "fragmentation" bomb or is it something specific

Forensic Architecture (@ForensicArchi) on X

Dr Abu-Sittah's expert testimony on the nature of the injuries he treated that night offers clues about the type of weapon used in the attack. His analysis of the wounds suggested that a ‘fragmentation bomb’ rather than a simple explosive was likely the cause of the blast.

Twitter · Oct 17, 2024, 5:31 PM

[shrewd dust]

Munitions are typically categorized by their employment and functional use. So a blast munition, like an "offensive" grenade, relies on just the blast effect from the explosives. Offensive grenades typically have plastic containers, with no heavy metal casing to limit fragmentation and the effective area. Most munitions include something to create fragmentation to achieve or enhance their desired effects. The fragmentation effect is pretty much always a greater range than the blast effect.

‘fragmentation bomb’ rather than a simple explosive was likely the cause of the blast.
This really isn't anything new. Basically all the assessments have been a small amount of explosives, with fragmentation. Blast waves are less effective in the open, while fragmentation is more effective.
All the suspected munitions would fit this category of having fragmentation