The blast that killed hundreds last week at a hospital in Gaza continues to be a topic of hot debate online.
But experts are increasingly doubtful that the publicly available evidence will be enough to settle the question of who was behind the incident.
“I don’t think the question will ever get fully resolved using open source intelligence,” says Andres Gannon, an assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.
Hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering in the courtyard of Al Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday, believing the Christian-run facility would be a safe haven.
Just before 7 p.m. local time, militants began firing a barrage of rockets from a site west of the hospital, according to independent footage of the event.
Moments later there was a terrible explosion at the site. Hundreds were killed, according to eyewitnesses and statements from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Hamas quickly claimed, without presenting evidence, that it was an Israeli airstrike. The Israel Defense Forces said it was a failed militant rocket that fell short of its intended target.
But publicly available evidence presents problems for both versions of the story.
Many experts, including Gannon, agree that the visual evidence doesn’t support a standard Israeli airstrike. Those strikes typically leave large craters, damage structures and spread shrapnel over a large area. Hamas has said they have yet to find physical evidence at the site, which investigators say would normally be there.
But the Israeli account that it was a failed rocket also has problems.
Israel says the rockets came from the west, and independent video evidence supports that.
But in the video closest to the blast, there’s the sound of something whizzing by. That sound is marked by the Doppler effect, which can be heard in the rise and fall in pitch as something moves toward an observer and then away from them.
An nongovernmental organization called Earshot, which conducts “sonic…
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