London-based investigative group ‘fires towards Israel’ NYT ‘removal of debris on site required’
Regarding the Gaza hospital bomb, the New York Times reported on the 22nd that Forensic Architecture, a London-based visual investigation group, disputed Israel's explanation that the ammunition was fired from the direction of Israel.
The NYT continued, “Qatari news channel Al Jazeera concluded that the Palestinian rocket was intercepted by an Israeli air defense missile. “Both are often critical of Israeli policies,” the report said.
The NYT said of the bombing investigation, "It may be impossible to draw firm conclusions about who fired it without examining the munitions that hit the parking lot." However, when reporters arrived at the scene the morning after the explosion, the remains of the munitions had been removed. “It appears that an independent analysis of its origin was impossible.”
The NYT said, “Reporters and photographers who toured the scene that day found shallow depressions in the ground, but no deep craters like those typically caused by Israeli precision-guided missiles used in airstrikes.” “It could be caused by other Israeli munitions that produce smaller impacts, such as errant interceptors fired by air defense systems or artillery shells,” it said.
In response, NYT said, “Israel said it did not launch interceptors into Gaza airspace and did not fire artillery shells toward a specific area at the time,” and “munitions experts dismissed Hamas’ claim that the ammunition was completely disintegrated on impact.”
NYT said, “Israel’s message about the rocket launch site was also inconsistent. Admiral Hagari claimed the errant rocket was launched from a cemetery near the hospital, while maps posted online by the military show the launch site was further away, he said. “But the Biden administration has supported Israel, and officials say infrared satellite data It was treated as a bilateral claim, saying that several initial information, including one, showed that rockets or missiles were launched from Palestinian fighter positions in the Gaza Strip.
Regarding other investigations, the NYT said, "A visual survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal strongly supported Israel's interpretation, as did an Associated Press and CNN survey, and all three surveys included television that appeared to show a Palestinian rocket misfired in the sky above the hospital. It cited an expert who said the damage in the video and on site was generally not similar to damage caused by an Israeli missile attack.”
Australian consultancy Armament Research Services' N.R. “In all but the most extreme circumstances, we would expect to be able to recover debris, and the available images from the hospital site suggest that we should be able to identify something on the ground,” Jenzen-Jones told the NYT. said.
“According to our intelligence, Hamas confirmed the report, understood that it was a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket, and decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what really happened,” Israeli Major General Daniel Hagari said at a press briefing on the 18th. “I did,” he said.
NYT said, “The Israeli military said Palestinian armed groups had mistakenly fired more than 550 rockets into its territory since the war began two weeks ago.” This claim could not be immediately confirmed, but Palestinian groups had previously said rockets had been fired into the Gaza Strip. He acknowledged that it fell, and a video from last year shows it zigzagging in the air immediately after launch and crashing into a civilian area.”
“We made mistakes, I won’t deny them,” Islamic Jihad spokesman Musab Al-Breim told the New York Times in an interview on the 18th. “But not mistakes of this scale.”
The NYT said, “Israeli authorities rejected our request to provide records of all military activities in the area at the time of the airstrike,” and “Israel refused to specify the video on which the assessment of Palestinian responsibility was based.” .
“The missile dissolved like salt in water,” said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, in a phone call with the NYT on the 22nd. “It was vaporized. There was nothing left.”
The New York Times reported today that Hamas denied the Times' request to show usable evidence of the munitions it said struck the hospital, claiming it had been dismantled beyond recognition.
The NYT concluded by saying, “For Palestinians, the debate over who is responsible for the hospital explosion has been heightened by the Israeli airstrikes, which have devastated entire neighborhoods, displaced hundreds of thousands of Gazans, and intensified the bilateral confrontation.” “It obscures the broader context that led to the deaths of other people.”