naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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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.
SecureSignals
Civilization is simply a geno-memetic-techno-capital machine
1yr ago·Edited 1yr ago
Is there a different video you would say provides the best evidence that the explosion was due to a rocket failure? From the beginning I found that story hard to believe, but I considered the now-debunked video the best evidence for it (like all the news orgs etc). Without that, the recording released by Israel seems to be the strongest evidence... And that's not saying much.
In any case, certain people here have absolutely jumped the gun by accusing the press of being "stenographers for terrorism." The situation is murkier than that, and if anything the Press has helped Israel's narrative by appealing to a now-debunked piece of evidence to all draw "high-confidence" conclusions...
Is there a different video you would say provides the best evidence that the explosion was due to a rocket failure?
The best evidence I've seen is the damage photos. It doesn't look like a large HE explosion (not enough damage), nor a small one (too much of the wrong sort of damage, especially fire). It looks like a fuel explosion; the bright fireball at the hospital site in some videos matches that also. I don't say this definitely indicates a rocket failure, but as far as I know there aren't any purpose-built munitions the Israelis are using that would create that sort of explosion.
Is there a different video you would say provides the best evidence that the explosion was due to a rocket failure?
IIRC this launch corresponded to PIJ announcing they were using one of their new longer-range (read: bigger) rockets, so the prior spontaneous failure rate probably should be estimated to be pretty high.
As someone who is reasonably familiar with high-power rocketry and has at least read the literature on making large solid motors (which is what these are), scaling up is hard: even small imperfections in the solid grain can cause explosive failures. Fail to get all the bubbles out when casting? Your burn rate (and thus chamber pressure, which can cause explosive failures) will vary drastically. Or maybe your grain cracks and pieces clog the nozzle: now you have a bomb.
Best results require starting with precisely-sized powders, high-grade chemicals, and some industrial equipment (mixing, vacuum casting) that scales with the size of motor you're trying to make. Most of that is something Hamas is having to make or smuggle in. And even for well-prepared amateurs it doesn't always succeed the first time.
IIRC this launch corresponded to PIJ announcing they were using one of their new longer-range (read: bigger) rockets, so the prior spontaneous failure rate probably should be estimated to be pretty high.
What's the distribution of mortality among these rocket failures? This would be a massive outlier, even assuming only 50 casualties. It hit the perfect spot, at some unspecified distance from where NYT reports that Israel was striking only two minutes before. My priors are just that it was an intentional strike, and "this launch corresponded to PIJ announcing they were using one of their new longer-range (read: bigger) rockets" is just weak evidence of a rocket failing in such a way and happening to strike that spot. It's another assumption of a new type of rocket other than the thousands others that have been launched from Hamas. So my priors are moving in the opposite direction if these are the sort of assumptions that need to be layered on to make the Israeli side of the story plausible.
Without the video which did show some sort of rocket failing at about the same time (and turned out to be an Israeli rocket !!), I don't know what evidence there actually is that this extremely unusual thing actually happened. Like I said, this video formulated previously what I thought was the strongest evidence for the Israeli side (but it didn't convince me then), so it's significant it's debunked.
The press (including the most 'reputable' outlets like the BBC) spent the first day after the hospital explosion credulously repeating "Israeli strike on hospital kills 550" (or even 800 in some cases).
It is now clear that even if Israel caused the explosion, which seems very much a debatable matter still, it didn't kill anywhere near the 500-800 people that Hamas' health ministry claimed.
There is no way this event would have been front page news, knowing what we know now. "Parking Lot bombed, 30 killed" doesn't have the same ring as "Hospital bombed, 500 killed".
SecureSignals
Civilization is simply a geno-memetic-techno-capital machine
2rafa 1yr ago
I do wonder if these initial reports spooked the IDF into instituting a flat denial of what would have been an intentional strike that was less extraordinary than initially reported.
In any case, the press initially reported excessive death tolls (how excessive is TBD) but then in the subsequent days and weeks their narrative shifted to relying on a bad piece of evidence to draw conclusions with high confidence. The initial press reaction to the news that was coming out of Gaza (where reporters are not allowed) is less telling than the narrative the congealed in the days and weeks after, a narrative that appears to have been based on bad evidence that they all got wrong.
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Notes -
Is there a different video you would say provides the best evidence that the explosion was due to a rocket failure? From the beginning I found that story hard to believe, but I considered the now-debunked video the best evidence for it (like all the news orgs etc). Without that, the recording released by Israel seems to be the strongest evidence... And that's not saying much.
In any case, certain people here have absolutely jumped the gun by accusing the press of being "stenographers for terrorism." The situation is murkier than that, and if anything the Press has helped Israel's narrative by appealing to a now-debunked piece of evidence to all draw "high-confidence" conclusions...
The best evidence I've seen is the damage photos. It doesn't look like a large HE explosion (not enough damage), nor a small one (too much of the wrong sort of damage, especially fire). It looks like a fuel explosion; the bright fireball at the hospital site in some videos matches that also. I don't say this definitely indicates a rocket failure, but as far as I know there aren't any purpose-built munitions the Israelis are using that would create that sort of explosion.
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IIRC this launch corresponded to PIJ announcing they were using one of their new longer-range (read: bigger) rockets, so the prior spontaneous failure rate probably should be estimated to be pretty high.
As someone who is reasonably familiar with high-power rocketry and has at least read the literature on making large solid motors (which is what these are), scaling up is hard: even small imperfections in the solid grain can cause explosive failures. Fail to get all the bubbles out when casting? Your burn rate (and thus chamber pressure, which can cause explosive failures) will vary drastically. Or maybe your grain cracks and pieces clog the nozzle: now you have a bomb.
Best results require starting with precisely-sized powders, high-grade chemicals, and some industrial equipment (mixing, vacuum casting) that scales with the size of motor you're trying to make. Most of that is something Hamas is having to make or smuggle in. And even for well-prepared amateurs it doesn't always succeed the first time.
What's the distribution of mortality among these rocket failures? This would be a massive outlier, even assuming only 50 casualties. It hit the perfect spot, at some unspecified distance from where NYT reports that Israel was striking only two minutes before. My priors are just that it was an intentional strike, and "this launch corresponded to PIJ announcing they were using one of their new longer-range (read: bigger) rockets" is just weak evidence of a rocket failing in such a way and happening to strike that spot. It's another assumption of a new type of rocket other than the thousands others that have been launched from Hamas. So my priors are moving in the opposite direction if these are the sort of assumptions that need to be layered on to make the Israeli side of the story plausible.
Without the video which did show some sort of rocket failing at about the same time (and turned out to be an Israeli rocket !!), I don't know what evidence there actually is that this extremely unusual thing actually happened. Like I said, this video formulated previously what I thought was the strongest evidence for the Israeli side (but it didn't convince me then), so it's significant it's debunked.
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The press (including the most 'reputable' outlets like the BBC) spent the first day after the hospital explosion credulously repeating "Israeli strike on hospital kills 550" (or even 800 in some cases).
It is now clear that even if Israel caused the explosion, which seems very much a debatable matter still, it didn't kill anywhere near the 500-800 people that Hamas' health ministry claimed.
There is no way this event would have been front page news, knowing what we know now. "Parking Lot bombed, 30 killed" doesn't have the same ring as "Hospital bombed, 500 killed".
More options
Context Copy link
I do wonder if these initial reports spooked the IDF into instituting a flat denial of what would have been an intentional strike that was less extraordinary than initially reported.
In any case, the press initially reported excessive death tolls (how excessive is TBD) but then in the subsequent days and weeks their narrative shifted to relying on a bad piece of evidence to draw conclusions with high confidence. The initial press reaction to the news that was coming out of Gaza (where reporters are not allowed) is less telling than the narrative the congealed in the days and weeks after, a narrative that appears to have been based on bad evidence that they all got wrong.
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