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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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I think that it's possible Hamas was launching rockets near the hospital and the IDF Air Force hit it after seeing a rocket launch from that location, not realizing its a hospital, or realizing too late.

If you look at the video of the one explosion close up, its way larger than any rocket we've seen Hamas launch in this conflict. Pretty clear its a JDAM IMO. Takes a lot of hoop jumping to conclude otherwise.

There's allegedly been at least a couple Fajar-5s launched already, which at 175-200kg payload could pretty easily do that, and the R160s are bigger. And there's supposedly texts from PIJ committing to the use of one just before this launch. The explosion isn't really what's weird, so much as the extremely high casualty numbers, but a bomb in the wrong enough place can do that.

Separately, there's no way the IDF was unaware there was a hospital here. It's a big hospital, and it's been there for freaking ever. If the IDF is firing off JDAMs at hotspots without crosschecking a zone map, that's just culpability with extra steps. Maybe some sort of technical error with the JDAM guidance system, but this sorta distance is margin-of-WWII-era aiming tech.

I saw a video from a couple days ago, which I am too lazy to lookup, in which a plane - or drone - targeted and bombed a source from a rocket launch from overhead. The scenario I am picturing is something like that, a quick trigger pull on a rocket launch source in the middle of the night with lights off or something. It's plausible that a shot from the hip like that could have been done. I imagine the operators and pilots are quite trigger happy at the moment over Gaza. Maybe they don't even have to ask a command chain for a decision like that.