Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist hospital in Gaza. The western media is claiming this never happened. Here, I will debunk every single argument that says it did not happen. I would recommend actually going to all the sources I link and checking them out in detail, because the screenshots posted here do not fully do it justice. EVERYTHING IS SOURCED. Please watch the videos yourself and make up your own mind. Everything here that is stated is something you can directly see in the videos sourced.
Initial Blast
Below you can see a video of the initial blast. Keep in mind there is quite a large fireball. This means it could not have been carried out by something without fuel or a payload.
Argument 1: Israel would never bomb a hospital, they are the most moral army!
Israel bombed literally the same hospital only a few days prior.
Israel had also specifically warned people to evacuate this hospital as they might attack it.
The fact they attacked a hospital they said they were going to attack a few days after they had already attacked it had initially led even a lot of pro-Israel accounts to believe Israel attacked it, such as Naftali, an Israeli Zionist and propagandist who routinely makes content defending the Israeli regime. The denials only came later when they realized the casualty counts were rather high and looked bad optically.
Argument 2: It was caused by a failed rocket fired inside of Gaza by Hamas and not be Israel!
There were two explosions, each only about five seconds apart, so it could not have been caused by a single failed rocket. The two explosions can be seen below.
There is video footage of a single rocket in the vicinity that appears to disintegrate in the air. A group called GeoConfirmed which aims “to provide a scientific layer of geolocation data to visual content” through an analysis found that the only rocket visible within the vicinity of the Gazan hospital at the time not only was too far away for it to have landed on the hospital after disintegrating, but it was not even a Gazan rocket but an Iron Dome interceptor.
Based on the geolocation of new footage its highly likely that: The missile -Al Jazeera footage- is an interceptor. (Iron Dome) The explosion in the air is too far away to be related to the hospital explosion.
The group earshot.ngo, which is a “not-for-profit organisation producing audio investigations for human rights and environmental advocacy,” conducted a sound analysis on the Doppler effect caused by the sound of the first missile strike as shown in the initial blast footage. From this, they also ruled out the strike having from the direction where most, including the IDF, agree where the rocket barrage would have been fired from if a malfunctioned Hamas rocket caused the explosion.
The Eekad group, a “a global platform for publishing facts and monitoring fake news,” alongside GeoConfirmed, has verified that this rocket is not even a Hamas rocket “malfunctioning” but an Iron Dome interceptor as it can been in a video to be originating from Israel.
They further conclude that the rather small explosion may have been caused by the “rocket fragments” and that this had no relation to the significantly larger explosion at the hospital courtyard. Two different events occurred simultaneously.
Not a single missile made contact with the hospital, challenging the narrative put forth by Israeli sources. A geographical analysis of the missile’s route confirmed its origin to be in the surrounding Israeli settlements. The distance between the Baptist Hospital and the Gaza Strip was approximately 3.5 kilometers, which aligned with the observed distance between the hospital and the missile’s launch point shown in the clip. By tracking the missile’s path, we observed that it successfully intercepted a missile behind the Baptist Hospital. Explosive remnants served as undeniable confirmation of the missile’s interception. While fragments from the interceptor missile were discernible in the video, it is essential to note that they did not descend upon the hospital. It is implausible that these fragments could have been the cause of the substantial explosion witnessed during the hospital attack.
This has also been confirmed by the New York Times that an Iron Dome site is in the area where the rocket appeared to have launched from.
The Times concluded that the missile in the video was never near the hospital. It was launched from Israel, not Gaza, and appears to have exploded above the Israeli-Gaza border, at least two miles away from the hospital…The Times cannot independently identify the type of projectile that was fired from Israel, though it was launched from an area known to have an Iron Dome defense system. The Israeli military says it doesn’t fire Iron Dome interceptors into Gaza, and indeed the missile seen in the video may not have crossed over into Gazan territory.
We now know that not only was this rocket an Iron Dome interceptor and not even a Hamas rocket, but it also was not even close enough to the hospital to have possibly landed on it when it disintegrated in the air, confirmed now by both New York Times and GeoConfirmed. There is in fact no evidence of a single Gazan rocket close enough to the hospital at the time of the explosion to have malfunctioned and landed on the hospital.
In the next section we’ll also discuss the supposed barrage used as evidence, but notice in the video how this rocket travels alone and is not part of any barrage nor did it originate with any barrage but from a distinct source. The barrage, as we will see, is unrelated to this lone rocket and both pieces of “evidence” cannot be used simultaneously.
Argument 3: There was a barrage of rockets over the hospital, so it could have been many other failed rockets!
Here, you can see what appears to be rockets flying toward the hospital. The problem with this footage is that the rockets are not actually flying toward the hospital. They are flying rightwards toward the hospital but also at an angle, so their overall trajectory is not toward the hospital. If you look at it from a different angle then you can clearly see they are not going in the same direction.
You can see an in-between angle below, where the rockets look like they are going towards the hospital leftwards, but are also clearly coming inwards towards the camera.
They are not going in the direction of the hospital but appear like it if you remove depth from consideration, if you ignore the fact they are moving closer to the camera and only consider their leftward movement. As shown with the previous video, a different angle shows them moving away from the hospital, but Israeli media has largely focused on only showing the very first video because this is less obvious.
This has also been confirmed by the Turkish government’s Center for Combating Disinformation, which confirmed the rockets were indeed moving away from the hospital and in fact the Israeli state had edited some footage to make this less obvious.
Also recall the video footage shown in the previous section. There is, yet again, no barrage of rockets anywhere to be seen around the hospital. Only the one loan rocket which has been confirmed to be an IDF interceptor. If supposedly there was a whole barrage going above the hospital as the Israeli footage implies, we should see evidence of it, but all other angles reveal that this barrage did not pass anywhere near the hospital.
Argument 4: The timestamps of the two barrages are exactly an hour apart, so they are two different events and prove nothing!
This argument is funny because the Israeli government had originally posted this footage then later reposted it with the timestamp cropped out. So if the timestamp disproves it then it also disproves Israel’s footage and none of this is actually relevant or evidence at all, because the explosion shown in all the videos both sides have shared would have no relevance to the hospital explosion.
This is the same timestamp in the video showing the rockets going away, and not toward, the hospital. If the footage is wrong for showing 19:59 rather than 18:59 then Israel also shared wrong footage. But, really, it’s likely neither are wrong. The idea that a barrage of rockets followed by an explosion near the hospital followed by a second explosion five seconds later would occur identically exactly an hour apart seems rather unlikely. What people forget is that Israel has daylight savings time so it is more likely one of the clocks was just not set correctly.
If one of the clocks was not adjusted for daylight savings time then it would be an hour off from the other clock since March. The Israeli government is not even making the argument about the clocks being exactly 1 hour apart, because the idea that two very specific and identical events occurred in precisely the same way 1 hour apart is an absurd notion. Even the Israeli government has been sharing footage with timestamps at 19:59. The claim that this timestamp proves anything is not a claim either side is making except for Twitter users who fabricated it from a community note.
The community note merely points out it occurred at 18:59 despite the timestamp being at 19:59 to cast doubt on the clip despite the extreme improbability that the hospital was bombed twice in exactly the same way exactly one hour apart, and there is no evidence the hospital’s courtyard was bombed twice. Again, even the Israeli government has been sharing footage with a timestamp of 19:59. It is clear that some clocks are just an hour off and the timestamp claim holds no water.
Here’s even another video footage shared by the Israeli government that claims to be of the same event, and the timestamp is entirely off, it does not even have the correct day. This was posted on the 17th despite it saying the 18th. Did the Israeli government invent time travel, or is it possible that simply not all the cameras have the correct time set?
Argument 5: The explosion was too small, it didn’t leave a crater and the hospital was not destroyed!
It actually did leave a crater, albeit not a large one. A more correct framing of this argument should be “the crater is too small” not “it didn’t leave a crater.”
The reason this argument fails is because Israel literally bombed the same hospital a few days prior, and this bombing and it also did not destroy the hospital either. It caused reparable damage to a few rooms and injured four people, but the hospital was still standing.
What this proves is that Israel does have the capability of dropping low-yield munitions. We’re used to seeing a lot of footage of them dropping very large bombs that cause entire towers to collapse, but clearly they have smaller bombs as well. Whatever this bomb was, that isn’t confirmed, and I do not claim to be a munitions expert, but I will quote some speculation below, which argues that bombs can be set to explode before they hit the ground explicitly because it can kill more people in a crowded area this way, but would also produce little to no crater.
Bombs with proximity fuses or proximity sensors may not create craters where they explode…The hospital attack in Gaza may have been similar. How high the bomb explodes can be set by the user…in attacks targeting populated areas, munition fuses can be time-delayed to explode 50–100 meters above the ground before hitting the target…This increases the impact of the attack. Looking at the area affected by the explosion and the traces left on the ground after the explosion in the attack on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, it can be suggested that the munition was set to explode prematurely in order to achieve an explosion in the air for a greater impact. This seems to have ensured a wider area of effect for the explosion…the possibility of Israel using the MK82 bomb, which they have used before and can guide through a kit, is emphasized… To provide a definitive statement, the examination of munition fragments and research in the area is necessary. However, the current situation makes this difficult.
— https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/experts-refute-israels-claims-on-gaza-hospital-attack
Another speculation is from the UK-based research group Forensic Architecture, which argues that the explosion is not consistent with a Palestinian-fired rocket, but may also have not come from an Israeli plane either. It instead suggests it is most consistent with an artillery shell fired from the Israeli side of the border.
If you take a look at the crater left from an artillery shell in the Russia — Ukraine war it looks of similar size to that left beyond at the hospital courtyard.
It is not known for certain the kind of munitions used, all we do know is that the blasts are not consistent with Palestinian rocket and fully consistent with blasts from previous munitions used by Israel. It either came from a plane or from artillery.
Argument 6: But nobody died! Just some cars in a parking lot were destroyed!
This argument is bizarre because literally the very first photo that came out of this bombing shows a person clearly lying on the ground dead. See the bottom of the photo.
Below is another video, this one largely blurred, showing large numbers of victims among the dead, dozens being children.
There’s further video footage of the immediate aftermath showing dozens of death bodies strewn across the ground.
We can even put a name to at least one of the people who died, Mohammed Sami. He recorded videos at that hospital and regularly posted to Instagram, and has disappeared ever since the explosion.
Even the United States, which obviously denies Israel had any wrongdoing, at least still acknowledges that hundreds died in the blast. The notion that nobody died is just an online conspiracy theory.
“We estimate the number of deaths is probably at the low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum. We are still assessing the likely casualty figures and our assessment may evolve, but this death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life,” the [U.S. intelligence] report said.
Argument 6: There were no Israeli planes in the air at the time, so there’s no way a plane could have bombed it.
Actually, you can see a flare from one of the planes clearly in the sky. Planes often release flares as a way to distract from heat-seeking rockets that could destroy it. These are bright like rockets but unlike rockets, they do not travel across the sky, but appear briefly in the sky seemingly out of nowhere and then disappear, and usually several at a time as the plane will release them in succession.
You can also see this exact same flaring appearing over another hospital where Israel bombed a building close to it only a day after. Not only is it confirmed Israeli planes do this, but the video footage of the bombing near the Al-Quds hospital a day after also confirms this flaring can correspond with a bombing run.
Of course, all we know is that the blast is entirely consistent with munitions Israel used recently, but it’s not confirmed what those munitions actually were. As shown previously, it is not even necessarily true they came from a plane, they could have also been artillery.
Argument 7: But there was an intercepted call where they admitted they did it!
This “intercepted call” was released by the IDF to absolve themselves of the crime. Conveniently, the call is incredibly clear, they only discuss exactly what is relevant to what the IDF tried to prove and there is no mention of anything else, and they talk in rather poor Arabic.
…this was an obvious fabrication two independent…Arab journalists told us…because of the language, accent, dialect, syntax, and tone, none of which is, they say credible.
— https://www.channel4.com/news/who-was-behind-the-gaza-hospital-blast-visual-investigation
This was not just something the experts were saying, but in fact it was the general consensus among Arab speakers on social media the moment it was revealed, largely mocking it for having obviously being spoken by non-native Arabic speakers, such as this post or this post.
The audio had also been edited, another finding by the audio analysis group earshot.ngo. This alone does not prove it is fake, but it does make it inadmissible as evidence until the unedited version is released.
Though this analysis cannot categorically state that the audible dialogue is fake, we can say that the level of manipulation required to edit these two voices together disqualifies it as a source of credible evidence. Earshot’s opinion is that this recording does not meet the standard required for evidence and should not be used by the media without the clear caveat that it has been digitally manipulated.
There is a more obvious problem with the call, though. It gets certain facts wrong, particularly where the barrage of rockets we saw earlier came from. It claims they came from a cemetery near the hospital, but the IDF itself proved this to be likely false.
You can see that the official IDF claim to where the rockets came from do not match the claim made in the supposed “intercepted call.”
This contradicts where the rockets actually came from, as pointed out by Channel 4 News, but was also pointed out by Sam Parker.
Israel claims the Islamic Jihad failed missile was fired from…the cemetery very close to the hospital…look again at the video of the event. The trajectory of the missile does not line up with that location, too high, too horizontal. Confusingly, the Israeli’s presentation also says the missile was fired from a location down in the southwest. It can’t be both.
— https://www.channel4.com/news/who-was-behind-the-gaza-hospital-blast-visual-investigation
Argument 8: It’s impossible the Iron Dome could have fired an interceptor because it can only intercept on descent and not ascent!
The argument is just incorrect. It originates from Al Jazeera which made the claim they believe the rocket in the video was intercepted by Iron Dome, and then an Australian think tank representative responded by saying that’s impossible because they cannot be intercepted upon ascent, and therefore tried to cast doubt on Al Jazeera’s entire investigation.
They do not actually cite the original article. If you pull up the original article, two obvious things emerge. The first is that it was written by Eran Ortal, a literal IDF general, who uses this to argue that therefore the Iron Dome is inherently “defensive.” This is obviously a politically motivated piece.
The much bigger problem, however, is that the Australian is simply lying about the article. The article is not claiming Iron Dome cannot intercept missiles in the ascent phase, and actually says the direct opposite that it is fully capable of this. It is instead arguing they choose not to destroy them in the ascent phase for the specific purpose of making Iron Dome a solely defensive weapon.
This is not mentioning a fundamental incapability of intercepting these missiles, but simply a choice by the Israeli government, a choice which the IDF general who wrote this is suggesting they should abandon because they have the capabilities to abandon it and it would create a “huge adaptive challenge for the enemy.” Since Israel is currently engaged in an offensive attack on Gaza, it would not be surprising then that other Israeli generals came to agree and are now using it offensively.
Argument 9: Hamas apologist! You’re an anti-semite! You support Hamas! You love beheading babies!
That’s how you know they have won the argument.
