Ed has already covered this topic here and Beege has a post coming up shortly as well. I’m not going to duplicate what they’ve done but I did want to say something about it because I spent some time last night and this morning looking at all the video from the scene. This appears to be the clearest video in daylight showing the small crater that was formed in the hospital courtyard.
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Instagram apparently won’t let you watch the clip here (it will open another tab) so I’m going to pull some images from the clip so you can see what I’m talking about. First, here’s the crater.
It looks about 2-3 feet across and maybe a foot deep. The key here is that whatever landed was almost directly between two small grassy areas, one to the right and one to the left. Here’s an overview of the scene with the crater marked. Notice the two grassy areas above and below that walkway. Unfortunately, that seems to be where families were sitting outside when the rocket hit.
Given a car around 10m away from this impact was flipped by the explosion (which I thought would have meant an almost direct hit) this could further indicate a projectile that broke up mid-air. But this is not something im confident in calling, would love to hear from an expert.
— Nathan Ruser (@Nrg8000) October 18, 2023
Another frame grab from the video shows the grassy area with all the trees (the lower area in the top-down image above). But notice in the background there is a low concrete wall with a wrought iron fence on top of it. That fence used to go around the entire lot. But if you look in the foreground you can see the fence has been blown away and big chunks of concrete with it. In fact, you can see big pieces of concrete sitting in the grass up to 20 feet away.
Now look at the grassy area on the other side of the crater. This is the upper green area in the top down image above. Again, notice the wrought iron fence in the background sitting on concrete. But in the foreground, that concrete has been blown over, away from the crater, which is only about 10 feet away.
Again, in the image below you can see pieces of concrete many yards away which were apparently blown there by the blast. This is where there were some families outside. There is video from last night showing this spot with multiple bodies spread around the ground. Whatever hit (I think a Hamas rocket seems most likely and US intel seems to agree) didn’t create a huge explosion but it was big enough to turn hundreds of pounds of iron fencing and concrete into shrapnel. That shrapnel was sent flying across these park areas, killing everyone who was standing in the way.
What you can also see in the video is that buildings that were 40-50 feet away appear relatively unharmed. There are some destroyed cars in the parking lot but most of the damage seems to have been caused by a fire, not by a blast. Notice the solar panels on the roof of this building. A powerful blast would have caught that like a sail and sent it flying off the roof but that didn’t happen. What you do see is some damage to the tiled roof in front of the panels, either from debris that fell from the sky or from concrete that was sent flying by the blast. But the building itself is fine. It’s not in danger of falling over.
Anyway, I’m sure there will be more expert analysis of this scene but those are my first impressions. I definitely don’t trust the casualty numbers provided by the Gaza health ministry (which is run by Hamas) but I do think a bunch of people were killed here last night because there were only a few feet away from where a rocket hit.
Update: Bellingcat has taken a look at the scene using the same video I used above. They also have this additional photo of the crater from Reuters (2nd tweet below).
This looks like the exact impact spot. Picture source is Reuters. pic.twitter.com/ZUmE0ML0KV
— Jaap Meijer (@climbingjaap) October 18, 2023
Their conclusion:
The ground surrounding one side of the crater shows a cone of scarring and pitting, consistent with the explosion of a munition at this site. Objects within this cone appear to have suffered extensive damage, including a fence which was largely destroyed by the explosion.
As noted by Marc Garlasco, a Military Advisor at PAX for Peace’s Protection of Civilians team, the impact point does not appear to be consistent with the 500, 1000 or 2000-pound bombs used in Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs).
One more tweet about the crater.
Whatever hit the hospital in #Gaza it wasn’t an airstrike. Even the smallest JDAM leaves a 3m crater. Widespread surface damage and total lack of cratering inconsistent with an airstrike. https://t.co/US4bJC0nY3
— Marc Garlasco (@marcgarlasco) October 18, 2023
Even Mehdi Hasan, who was all over this story last night, is backing off.
Marc has worked for the Pentagon, for the UN, for Human Rights Watch, and knows his stuff on war crimes and air strikes.
In all the fog of war, and the fog of Twitter, he's a credible and serious voice worth paying attention to. At least, I do. https://t.co/XDj3vbOTxU
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 18, 2023
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