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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30377 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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The IDF is claiming that the hospital impact was from a PIJ rocket (Palestine Islamic Jihad?), with some video showing a failed rocket launch with the right time stamps (maybe not; see below) as one of many in the salvo. Doesn't make it the truth, especially since it's hard to see what hit where, but video evidence is still worth a bit.

Still finding the casualty count weird. We know what happens when a Scud hits a crowded and ill-armored building, and almost all of the arms involved here are sub-Scud payload-wise. I'd expect hospital patients to be more vulnerable than soldiers, but this much more? Maybe if something big on the ground cooked off.

A possibly-intercepted SCUD crashing into a building? I could see that being on the low end, and it still inflicted ~130 casualties. If the hospital were significantly more densely populated than a 100-man barracks and mess hall, maybe the figures make more sense.

I’m seeing a 600kg payload for a SCUD and no idea of what weapons the IDF is deploying.

I'm not sure if the Iron Dome interceptor -- and the bright rocket flare is definitely an interceptor -- that's the focus of the first fifteen seconds of these videos is related, or just what distracted the cameramen before a separate rocket launched into the disaster.

EDIT: strike that, I'm not convinced the prolonged rocket flare and airborne detonation is proof it was an interceptor. Hassams don't act like that, even during the ascent phase, but some of the longer-range rockets might./EDIT

I don't do rocket science, but in the general aviation world the rule of thumb for freefall is 3-10 seconds per 1000 foot drop, and napkin math for a powered-but-sub-mach rocket gives a limit of almost a second per 1000 foot distance. It's possible that the Iron Dome interceptor EDIT: or an internal failure /EDIT damaged a guidance surface without breaking up the rocket's motor or general structure, and then you get close to normal (or even higher) speed but a wildly wrong direction. That's... not impossible, although I'd be weirded out by the multiple detonations, but there's a lot of OSI people giving it credence so what do I know.

IF the IDF is telling the truth, which isn't a given, it's possible that the second flash of light while the cameramen are looking upwards at the interceptor was a separate launch, which misfired into far too shallow an angle or with partial motor failures, and the near-instant impact is the rocket working up to speed and hitting the ground. But they're really too close in time for the claimed rocket trajectory. Maybe a motor failure and detonation in mid-air for the first flash shortly after launch, then the payload impacted on a ballistic trajectory?

Dunno. It's pretty far outside of my field of focus.

EDIT: and to be clear, I don’t think Hamas has or even wants SCUDs specifically; they’re just about similar in yield to the upper bound of known rockets in the Strip, which we have a known mass casualty incident.

This is far closer, from the ground: https://twitter.com/SanaSaeed/status/1714374438475399596

Anyone have comparison videos for what a PIJ rocket sounds like?

edit: found one that's plausibly a match on audio: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JS18N7qMX00

Al-Jazeera footage with a closer view: https://twitter.com/jconricus/status/1714376318136021443

It appears they zoom in on a rocket that gets intercepted or fails mid-air. A flash from below is seen, then zoom out, then what is supposedly the hospital explodes.

If this video is indeed of the hospital explosion, then I don't see any way that this could be anything other than a Palestinian misfire.

I mean, what's the alternative? That an (apparently very large) Palestinian missile failed just above that hospital and then right when you would expect the debris to fall to the ground, just coincidentally at that point an IDF bomb crashes into the hospital? What are the odds!

If this was the Israelis, they clearly weren't planning on owning it... how insanely lucky for them then that a Palestinian rocket failed just above that hospital seconds before they blew it up. "Well Shlomo, glad that rocket failed exactly when and where it did, I honestly had no idea how we were gonna spin this."

that video is strange. the rocket somehow morphs into an interceptor, and then the payload lands on the hospital?

here's a sync of a video recorded from the ground, and the al jazeera footage: https://is2.4chan.org/pol/1697578222179044.webm - there's clearly an initial flash before the main explosion, perfectly in sync, in both videos, so it seems likely that this was the explosion. the al jazeera video is at 7 pm israeli time, which is earlier than any news report i've seen of it.

According to this, the video didn’t have the correct time stamps.

Thanks, updated.

that video looks plausible, and is taken directly from the livestream so unlikely to be doctored - one rocket noticeably goes in a different, lower direction from its compatriots, disappears, and you can see a bright flash ten seconds later at 20:00:11 that could be the explosion from the ground, followed by a zoom in on something on fire. bbc first reported it at 20:25 israel time. al jazeera first reported it at 19:49 israel time, so that would make the video irrelevant. another issue is that the timestamps from that livestream are all different. israel also updated that tweet without the video, so something fucky's definitely going on.

I’m 90% sure there was a weapons cache on the premises. There are only so many giant hospitals in Gaza, and Hamas’s only winning weapons are human shields and international sympathy. We know Hamas has other “dual-purpose” hospitals, why not this one too?

I’m not sure I buy the narrative that it was a Palestinian rocket that set it off though. Seems almost too perfect.

The wording on this tweet makes me think it was a Palestinian rocket intercepted by the Iron Dome close to the hospital. Which would be a huge cluster**** for everyone however you split it.

Yes "failed shooting" would technically cover the use of Iron Dome, but make it seem like a malfunctioning rocket in a Motte and Bailey.

The pro Israel argument is that the hospital had ammo storage under it. This doesn't make sense though because there doesn't seem to be a secondary explosion.

The whole thing seems weird as hell to me. Definitely will be adjusting my priors as this shakes out.

Could the ammo have cooked off, either on its own or because of Hamas’ incompetence/poor quality control?

The videos seem to have audio of a missile of some kind whizzing through the air before the boom.

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