Israel is also relying on the video from a TV station when dealing with the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip. But this apparently shows a different incident. Nevertheless, an Israeli airstrike on the hospital remains unlikely.
It is still unclear how the deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City occurred around a week ago. Palestinians and the Israeli government blame each other. The facts are sparse, so attempts are made to recapitulate the events primarily using photo and video recordings. The Israeli and US side often used a video from the live stream of the Al-Jazeera TV channel to show that a bullet from Gaza was the cause. However, this video is hardly reliable as evidence of this.
Al-Jazeera footage shows a projectile exploding in the air. Shortly afterwards, another explosion can be seen, presumably at Al-Ahli Hospital. Official Israeli accounts posted the video multiple times X, numerous media reported on it. According to Israeli interpretation, it shows a Palestinian rocket that crashed due to a malfunction and caused the explosion at the hospital.
Doubts about this version arose a few days ago. The data expert wrote on Sunday Oliver Alexander on X, the video shows a missile fired by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Based on satellite images, he located the detonation not near the hospital, but in the border area between Gaza and Israel.
“NYT”: Explosion miles away
An analysis by the “New York Times” (“NYT”) now largely agrees with Alexander’s statements. Accordingly, the projectile seen in the recording exploded in the border area about three kilometers from the hospital. A retracing of the trajectory also showed that the rocket in question was fired from near the Israeli city of Nahal Oz towards Gaza.
Although the NYT was unable to conclusively identify the bullet, it believes it is entirely possible that it came from an Iron Dome defense system. Such a system is located in the identified launch area. The projectile from the Al Jazeera recording was also fired at a later date than the Palestinian rockets that Israel says were responsible for the clinic explosion.
Sergej Maier from the RTL and ntv verification team initially considered Israel’s explanation derived from the Al Jazeera video to be plausible. But then a cameraman from Al-Jazeera released another video. It shows the scene from an almost identical position as the first video, but starts a little earlier. This makes the suspected launch site easier to recognize. Maier concludes that the location must be much further east than it appeared.
Israel denies using Iron Dome
“The Al Jazeera video most likely does not show a Hamas rocket, but rather an Iron Dome rocket that fires something in the border area with Gaza, but in Israeli airspace,” says Maier. The shooting in the sky and the explosion at the hospital are therefore unrelated. The “NYT” also assumes this. The Israeli military, however, denied to the newspaper that it had fired interceptor missiles at the time and in the area in question.
But even though the Al Jazeera video doesn’t appear to show a Palestinian rocket, that doesn’t mean it makes an Israeli attack on the hospital any more likely. The “NYT” writes that a few minutes before the explosion, Palestinian militants fired dozens of rockets southwest of the Al-Ahli clinic. “The fiery explosion in the hospital indicates a failed missile that missed its target by a wide margin with unused fuel,” it said.
However, the analyzed footage also suggests that Israeli bombings took place around the same time. Explosions could be seen near the hospital. Major Nir Dinar, an Israeli military spokesman, told the NYT that the airstrikes did not endanger the hospital. However, he did not specify how far away they were from this.
Israeli attack unlikely
The footage taken after the explosion also speaks against Israeli shelling. Instead of one or more large craters, only a smaller impact hole can be seen. An Israeli attack, as claimed by Hamas, would have resulted in even more serious damage. Hamas has not yet been able to produce any remains of Israeli ammunition.
But couldn’t an Israeli Iron Dome ricochet also be responsible for the explosion? Austrian Colonel Markus Reisner thinks this is unlikely. In principle, the Iron Dome rockets would only hit those projectiles “that pose a possible threat to the Israeli side,” he tells ntv.de.
The shooting usually takes place over Israeli territory. There are technical reasons for this because, according to Reisner, the defense system first needs time to calculate the trajectory of the enemy missile. After a successful launch, Iron Dome missiles would usually self-destruct and not even hit the ground.
What is certain is that the Al Jazeera video presented by Israel does not support the scenario of Palestinian responsibility for the explosion. And yet the version of a misguided rocket by Palestinian militants remains the most plausible at present. “Even if there is still no clear evidence of what happened in the hospital parking lot, the damage can most likely be attributed to a rocket crash,” data expert Alexander also writes on X.