The Americans, the Germans, all the security agencies with an eye on the ground, but also the open source intelligence accounts, clearly like Project Owl, which also works for the New York Times, the NYT itself, which has a long tradition of fact checking, and Of course, the Israelis, who have conducted hours of wiretapping investigations, a few videos and the radar tracks of the rockets in the Gaza Strip, and finally the snapshots taken by the photographers of the international media, all agree that they deny Hamas’s reconstruction of the attack on Al Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.
The number of victims is likely to be between a few dozen and three hundred, certainly not the 500 that the spokesman for the Gaza Strip Health Ministry reported far too early around the world about twenty minutes after the massacre. A few more minutes and the same ministry limited itself to talking about “hundreds”. Hours later, the head of nearby Shifa Hospital, Mohammad Abu Selim, said the blast killed between 150 and 200 people at his hospital and injured 300. Western intelligence sources quoted by France Press last night lowered estimates of the dead to between 10 and 50, while for the Americans they would be between 100 and 300. The propaganda machine was set in motion immediately after the massacre at 6:59 p.m. local time on October 17.
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It is an old rule of communication that whoever speaks first dictates the headlines, only to be proven wrong the next day, and so it was that the death toll rose to 500. Either way, 50 or 300 or 500, it was a bloodbath. And this is where the most serious mystification occurs, because Hamas immediately blamed the Israeli Air Force, defying the evidence that came to light in subsequent Western, Israeli and even independent investigations. The crucial point is the crater left by this projectile, which is about a meter wide and is compatible not with Israeli missiles, which are much more devastating, but with a missile warhead from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group allied to Hamas. In addition, it is clear from the aerial images from drones and satellites that the affected area is not the hospital with its 80 beds, but an adjacent parking lot. The hospital remained intact, although windows shattered in the explosion and shrapnel hit the Palestinians inside. Some photos were also released of doctors and surgeons, and it is clear that these were not the 500 dead that the Hamas spokeswoman claimed.
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The conclusion of the Israeli army’s investigation, in the words of its spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari, is: “With absolute certainty it was a failed launch of an Islamic Jihad missile.” The hospital was not directly hit, while there were signs of fire in the parking lot outside can be seen, possibly due to the fuel and size of the crater being caused by a rocket rather than a jet rocket. The same thing emerges from the infrared images of the area. No large crater could be identified and the walls of the hospital remained intact. In addition, the Israelis did not launch any missiles at the time, “neither from land, sea, nor from the air,” and two videos clearly showed the crash.
The interception published by Israeli intelligence of the conversation between two suspected Hamas militants who were astonished to admit responsibility for “our” rocket is simply less important because such a document can be easily created. But if it were true, it would be confirmation of Hamas’s “signature” to the massacre. And it wouldn’t be the first time that Hamas or Jihad missed the shot and landed in Gaza. In fact, in those ten days of war alone, the Israelis counted 450 faulty rockets that killed and injured Palestinians. The statement supported the Palestinian version and prompted hospital authorities to evacuate him. But Israel responds that they were generic alarms. The other worrying aspect is that the launch would have taken place close to the hospital, no further than 200 meters. Attracts Israeli counter-artillery fire.
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on Il Messaggero