Shortly before 7 p.m. on Tuesday, a barrage of rockets lit up the dark sky over Gaza. Videos analyzed by The Associated Press show one veering off course, breaking apart in the air before plummeting to the ground.
Seconds later, the videos show a large explosion in the same area – the al-Ahli Arab Hospital compound in Gaza.
Who was responsible for the fiery explosion has sparked heated debate and blame between the Israeli government and Palestinian militants, further escalating tensions in their two-week war.
The AP analyzed more than a dozen videos from the moments before, during and after the hospital explosion, as well as satellite images and photos. AP’s analysis shows that the rocket that broke up in mid-air was fired from Palestinian territory and that the explosion at the hospital was most likely caused by part of the rocket falling to the ground.
Due to the lack of forensic evidence and the difficulty of collecting this material on the ground in the midst of war, there is no definitive proof that the missile disintegration and the hospital explosion are related. However, AP’s assessment is supported by a number of experts with specialties in open source intelligence, geolocation and rocketry.
“In the absence of additional evidence, the most likely scenario would be that it was a rocket fired from Gaza that failed mid-flight and mistakenly hit the hospital,” said Henry Schlottman, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst and open source contributor Intelligence expert.
What I found
The AP reached its conclusion by reviewing more than a dozen videos from newscasts, security cameras and social media posts and comparing the locations with satellite images and photos from before the explosion.
A key video of the analysis came just before 7pm local time, as Arabic-language news channel Al Jazeera broadcast live coverage of the Gaza City skyline. As a correspondent speaks, the camera pans to zoom in on a volley of rockets being fired from the ground nearby.
One of the rockets appears to veer away from the others, away from the distant lights of Israel and back toward a dark Gaza city where power has largely been cut. The camera follows the light from the rocket’s tail as it curves up and to the left in the sky. Suddenly the rocket appears to shatter and a part appears to break off and fall. Another fragment shoots sharply up and to the right, blazing before exploding in a firework-like flash, leaving a short trail of sparks.
Then a small explosion can be seen on the ground in the distance, followed two seconds later by a much larger explosion closer to the camera. In the corner of the scroll at the bottom of the live broadcast it says 6:59 p.m. Gaza time.
Using maps and satellite images, the AP was able to pinpoint the view of the explosion from Al Jazeera’s live camera feed to an upper floor of the building that houses Al Jazeera’s Gaza office, which is less than a mile (1.5 kilometers) from Al Jazeera away is -Ahli Arab Hospital. Based on other buildings visible in the image, the AP was able to confirm that the larger explosion observed at 6:59 p.m. occurred directly in the direction of the hospital.
A second video, taken by a camera in Israel at exactly the same time as Al Jazeera’s footage and obtained by the AP, shows a barrage of at least 17 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip before a large explosion appears on the horizon the Palestinian side illuminates the border. The camera is trained on a building in Netiv Ha’asara, an Israeli community just steps from the border wall, and faces southwest. This confirms that the rocket launches and explosion occurred towards Gaza City.
A video from an Israeli town just steps from the border wall shows a barrage of at least 17 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. (Dudi Peled)
A third video from Israeli news channel Channel 12 – taken from a camera on the upper floor of its building in Netivot, a town about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of the hospital in Gaza City – also captured the rocket barrage fired on 6:59 Clock
Taken together, the three videos show that several rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip before one apparently disintegrated in mid-air about three seconds before the explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital.
Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a social media post at 7 p.m. that “the Al-Qassam Brigades occupied Ashdod with rocket fire.” Minutes later, it was published that “Al-Qassam Brigades attack Tel Aviv in response to Zionist massacres of civilians.”
At 7 p.m., a minute after the explosion, Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a post on its Telegram channel that it had “fired rocket fire at occupied Ashdod.” Ashdod is an Israeli coastal city about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Gaza.
Minutes later, Islamic Jihad, a militant group that works with Hamas, also posted on Telegram that it had launched a rocket attack on Tel Aviv in response to “a massacre of civilians.” Over the next hour, there were five more posts from the militant groups announcing rocket attacks against Israel.
The Israeli military has repeatedly said it did not attack the hospital, blaming it on a misguided rocket fired by Islamic Jihad from the Gaza Strip. Israel’s assessment, backed by U.S. intelligence agencies and President Joe Biden, also cited the lack of a large crater and extensive structural damage consistent with a bomb dropped by Israeli aircraft.
Hamas calls Israel’s narrative “fabricated” and accuses it of trying to punish the hospital for ignoring a warning to evacuate two days earlier. However, she has not released any evidence to support her claims.
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad told the AP the group would welcome a United Nations investigation into the cause of the explosion.
“Look at the stupid position taken by the president of the United States of America, who said, ‘I agree with Israel’s version,’ without there being an investigation,” Hamad said. “Unfortunately, the Western world is full of hypocrisy.”
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY
AP had its visual analysis conducted by a half-dozen experts, all of whom agreed that the most likely scenario was a rocket from Gaza that was deflected and fell apart seconds before it exploded.
Andrea Richardson, an expert in open-source intelligence analysis and adviser to the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, said certain landmarks visible in the videos show where the missiles were fired.
“It is very clear from the video evidence I have seen that the rockets came from Gaza,” said Richardson, a human rights lawyer and veteran war crimes investigator who has worked in the Middle East. She added that the timing of the missile launches, the explosion and the first reports of an attack on the hospital also seemed to confirm the sequence of events.
The explosive warheads carried by militants’ homemade rockets in Gaza, while still potentially deadly, can be relatively small compared to the munitions used by major militaries such as those of the United States and Russia. With Gaza’s borders and ports blocked over the past decade, militants inside Gaza often build rockets out of whatever parts and materials they can loot, including underground water pipes.
Justin Crump, a former British Army officer and intelligence adviser, said the failure rate of such home-made rockets was high.
“You obviously see it failing in flight, spinning and disintegrating, and the impact on the ground follows that,” said Crump, CEO of Skyline, a London-based strategic consulting firm. “The most likely explanation is that it was a tragic accident.”
Such a scenario occurred last year when rockets fired by Islamic Jihad malfunctioned, killing at least a dozen Gazans. The AP reported at the time that live television footage showed the militants’ rockets missing in densely populated neighborhoods.
THREE second gap
Some of the questions about who is to blame center on the three-second gap between the rocket’s explosive burst in the sky and the explosion on the ground at al-Ahli Arab Hospital, and whether these two events are linked, particularly due to the Videos The satellites analyzed by AP do not appear to show a light trail following the rocket to the ground.
Outside experts said it could not be ruled out with absolute certainty that the rocket launches near the hospital and the timing of the explosion seconds later were just a coincidence. However, they also noted that there was no evidence to support this scenario.
Richardson said the time stamps on videos showing the rocket launches from Gaza, the mid-air malfunction and the large explosion that hit the hospital below within seconds provided a logical chain of events.
“An incredibly small time frame,” she said.
Intelligence analyst Schlottman said the most likely scenario remains that it was a militant missile that somehow malfunctioned in flight and then ended up in the hospital.
“We have video of the time of the explosion and the only missile that was seen in that video was the one that had a different trajectory,” he said. “We cannot possibly rule out other scenarios. … Exactly what we have right now suggests that.”
EVIDENCE ON SITE
About 10 minutes after Tuesday night’s multiple rocket launches from Gaza were captured on video, social media posts began appearing. The AP reviewed a video taken from a balcony near the hospital that shows the moment of impact, with the loud hiss followed by a huge fireball and the sound of a massive explosion. AP could not find any visual evidence to support speculation that the explosion was caused by a car bomb or similar device.
A video taken from a balcony near al-Ahli Arab Hospital shows the moment of impact. (Verified User Generated Content)
“Oh God! Oh God!” a man’s voice calls out in Arabic. “The hospital!” says a second male voice.
Other videos and photos reviewed by AP appear to show the blast in the central parking lot and in the hospital’s courtyard, where civilians had taken refuge after the order to evacuate the city. Some footage shows burning cars and more than a dozen bodies, including children.
Vehicles burst into flames immediately after an explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital. (Verified User Generated Content)
AP photos taken the morning after Tuesday’s blast showed no evidence of a large crater at the impact site that would be consistent with a bomb like those dropped by Israeli planes in other recent attacks. The hospital buildings surrounding the outdoor area at the center of the explosion were still standing and did not appear to have sustained any significant structural damage.
Video from the scene showed no evidence of a large crater at the impact site, which would suggest a bomb like those dropped by Israeli aircraft in other recent attacks. (AP)
A small crater photographed in the hospital parking lot appeared to be about a meter in diameter, suggesting a device with a much smaller explosive charge than a bomb. While Israel’s extensive arsenal includes smaller rockets that can be fired from helicopters and drones, there was no public evidence of such rocket attacks in the area around al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday evening.
David Shank, a retired U.S. Army colonel and military rocket and missile expert, said the large fireball captured on video at the hospital could possibly be explained by the fact that the defective militant missile hit prematurely and was still full of fuel was. This highly volatile fuel then ignited when it hit the ground, causing a large explosion but leaving a relatively small crater.
After Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,400 people and took another 200 people hostage, the Israeli military said it dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza in the first week of the war alone, and Gaza officials said say that there have been more than 4,100 deaths so far.
Hamas spokesman Hamad said Israeli officials threatened Al-Ahli Arab Hospital and other medical facilities and ordered their evacuation before the deadly explosion. He argued that Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets would not have been capable of causing such damage.
The operators of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital posted on their website that the facility’s cancer center was attacked by Israel three days before the deadly explosion, leaving a hole in an exterior wall and an unexploded artillery shell next to an ultrasound machine.
Iron dome theory
Speculation has circulated on social media in the days since the explosion that the rocket’s breakup and explosion on the ground were caused by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, which is designed to shoot such rockets out of the sky.
Israel has said it is not using its Iron Dome system inside the Gaza Strip, but rather to intercept and destroy missiles that enter Israeli airspace.
Experts also noted that several videos from the time of the hospital explosion showed no visible evidence that Iron Dome rockets were fired from Israel into the airspace over Gaza.
John Erath, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and an expert in missile defense, said that while it was technically possible for Iron Dome to intercept a missile over Gaza, it was unlikely in this case because of the very dangerous nature of the projectile located in it is still at the beginning of its trajectory – still on the way up – and the system is designed to only intercept projectiles that it determines are on a trajectory towards a populated part of Israel.
“I’m not saying it’s impossible,” Erath said. “But based on my understanding of how the system works, that’s unlikely.”
Shank, a retired US Army colonel and military rocket and missile expert, explains whether it is likely that the explosion was caused by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. (AP)
Missile expert Shank added: “You don’t attack a target unless it hits a critical asset like a population area, maybe a power grid, maybe a military base.”
“It is technically designed to deliver the best shot that provides the highest probability of killing,” he said. “And for Iron Dome…that’s not about Gaza.”
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AP Global Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker reported from Washington. Reporter Danica Kirka contributed from London.
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Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected].