(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . My theory: Car Bomb, Not rockets, at Gaza Hospital [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-20 Admin correction: the original title of this story, “CAR BOMB, NOT ROCKETS, at GAZA HOSPITAL,” was edited to reflect that this is the community author’s speculative theory rather than demonstrable fact. Weigh the argument with all appropriate skepticism. The explosion at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City was caused by a car bomb and NOT a rocket. This diary carefully examines the evidence available to the author in order to reach this conclusion. This conclusion means that someone in Gaza planted a car bomb at the hospital. Exactly who did, and didn’t, plant the car bomb is discussed. INTRODUCTION and BACKGROUND On the night of October 17, 2023, an explosion took place at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, killing and injuring a large number of people sheltering in the hospital compound, as well as damaging the hospital. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO, Hezbollah, and many Middle Eastern governments blamed Israel for the attack. Israel blamed Islamic Jihad for the attack, claiming it was caused by an errant rocket. The United States is carefully examining the evidence to determine what happened, but said that Israel did not attack the hospital. Mass protests were held against Israel around the world. The Palestinian Authority called for 3 days of mourning. Hezbollah called for a Day of Rage against Israel. (Hezbollah is an Iranian backed terrorist group in Lebanon.) President’s Biden’s visit with leaders from Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority was cancelled due to this attack, which they blamed on Israel. (The Palestinian Authority, or PA, is the Palestinian governing body and located in the West Bank. Its largest political party is the PLO.) This attack follows Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel’s communities near the Gaza border on October 7, 2023, and the murder of many Israelis and people from around the world that were in the area of the attack. It also follows mass rocket attacks of Israeli cities by Hamas and Islamic Jihad from October 7 thru at least October 17, and Israeli bombing of Gaza after the October 7th attack. These attacks were taking place when the explosion occurred at the hospital. Sources for this article are at the end in a section called “Sources.” The sources for the general background information are in Wikipedia and are widely available on the internet from major news organizations. Al AHLI HOSPITAL The Al Ahli Hospital dates from 1882, when it was established in the Old City of Gaza by the Anglican Church in England. It has been run by this church to the current day, except for a period from 1954 to 1982 when it was run buy the Southern Baptist Church. It is the only Christian Church in the Gaza Strip, and is independent of the Ministry of Health in Gaza which is run by Hamas. The hospital has 80 beds and offers provides related medical services. It is housed in a compound consisting of seven or more buildings surrounding a courtyard. This courtyard contains two open air plazas with trees, and two adjacent parking lots. Overall and detailed views of the hospital are shown below. Overall view of the hospital compound. The white dot shows the courtyard with the two large, green, open air plazas and the parking lots. The red dot is the approximate location of the small crater found, which is discussed in detail later. Closer view of the courtyard. The red dot is the approximate location of the small crater found, which is discussed in detail later. The white rectangle outlines the area of the parking lots that sustained the most damage in the explosion. The red, blue and green rectangles outline tile roofs whose tiles were damaged during the explosion. The EXPLOSION and DAMAGE The explosion took place around 7:00 pm on the night of October 17, 2023. The explosion was adjacent to the two open air plazas where people were sheltering from the Israeli air attacks occurring in Gaza City. Pictures of the explosion are shown below. They are screen grabs from videos from CNN and the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). The explosion begins with a wide flame billowing up from the ground. No fireball or small central origin for the flames is seen. There appears to be two fires joined together. Near the Start of the Explosion. Note that there is no single point of origin for the flames. At the end of the video of the explosion. The wide flame front is still present. Picture of two flame origins. Time of picture isn’t given, but appears to be closer to the start of the explosion than the two above. Overhead pictures of the damage after the explosion are show below, along with daytime pictures in color. The overhead pictures of the damage are night vision photographs in black and white. Night Vision Photograph of the damage from the explosion. The dotted line is the parking lot, and is shown in more detail in the picture below. The solid white line is supposed to outline the hospital compound, but isn’t entirely accurate. There is a small, black dot between the two large plazas, and just below one of the white dashes. This dot has been identified as the small crater, but doesn’t correspond to its actual location in the photograph of it shown later. Close up photograph of the damage to the cars in the parking lot. All the cars in the red boxes have a lot of damage.. An overturned car is in the lower center of the left, red square. Below it is the second most damaged car. Overall daytime view of the damage from the explosion. The red roof on the right has some of its tiles blown off View of the damaged cars in the upper parking lot. There is another damaged car to the lower left that is not shown. One shudders to think of what happened to the people sheltering in the adjacent plazas after seeing what happened to cars made out of steel. The primary effect of the explosion is on the people sheltering in the open air plazas adjacent to the parking lots. They were directly in the path of the explosion and fireball. They would most likely be killed, maimed and injured. The survivors would be traumatized, many for the rest of their lives. There is little structural damage seen to the buildings from the air. However, most, if not all, of the windows facing the parking lot would have been blown out by the explosion. There is one small craters visible. It is between the two plazas and shown below. There is a depression and a small, mostly square crater. Crater in the Parking Lot and Between the two large, open air plazas. An overturned car is directly above the blue barrel. CAUSE of the EXPLOSION All of the statements by various governments, organizations and news outlets say that the explosion was caused by a bomb(s) or rocket(s) – i.e. aerial ordnance. The (impassioned) arguments are over whose aerial ordnance was used, with both sides pointing to the other side. No one has taken responsibility for the attack. Two possible causes are considered below – aerial ordnance and car bombs. AERIAL ORDNANCE Israel has been attacking Gaza City every day with aerial ordnance since the Hamas attack on October 7. Hamas has likewise been attacking Israeli cities with aerial ordnance on and after October 7. Islamic Jihad has followed Hamas in carrying out their own rocket attacks on Israeli cities after the October 7th attacks, including rockets with a path over the hospital. Thus, it is only natural to assume that the explosion at the hospital was caused by aerial ordnance. However, there are multiple problems with aerial ordnance being the cause of the explosion. These problems also cover debris from a disintigrating rocket, such as a warhead or a container filled with rocket fuel. The first one is that no aerial ordnance is seen falling on the hospital in the pictures or videos of the explosion. While rockets and bombs can be difficult to capture, glimpses of them are seen in most of the videos of explosions caused by them. The video posted by Al-Jazeera of a rocket disintegrating in air with two remnants falling – one in the city and supposedly one on the hospital – are not definitive as we don’t see any trace of a remnant hitting the hospital. The second one is a lack of remnants. If a remnant did land in or near the parking lot, then the remains of the remnant should have been found. But, no such remnants were found. The third problem is the size of the crater. Almost all bombs and rockets with an explosive warhead produce a larger crater than that seen in the photographs after the attack. And, they produce circular craters – not square ones. The fourth problem is the lack of a small point origin of the explosion. An explosion by most aerial ordnance starts at the point of impact, and fans out from that origin. Instead, the fire from the explosion covers a wide swath in the video image at the start of the explosion. The fifth, and last, problem is the likelihood of aerial ordnance landing exactly between the two plazas, and next to the fence of a parking lot. This problem primarily affects the Israeli explanation of the explosion. Neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad has the technology for their “homebuilt” aerial ordnance to precisely land adjacent to the open air plazas at the hospital. They are more likely to miss the hospital altogether. (Drones are a potential way to precisely hit the parking lot. However, drones are noisy and would be heard and seen coming in. The lack of any video evidence of drones, nor any reports of drones, makes drones an unlikely candidate to cause the explosion. A drone attack also would produce craters, and a circular pattern of damage.) CAR BOMB A cause that hasn’t been considered in any of the statements and news reports is a car bomb. Car bombs have been, and continue to be, used for attacks on civilians, especially in the Middle East. Terrorist groups in the Middle East are very good at building and using car bombs to cause mass casualties. When looking at the pictures of the aftermath of the explosion, there are two vehicles in the parking lot more heavily damaged than the rest, as shown in the picture below. One is heavily damaged and overturned. The second is between the overturned vehicle and the fence, and is also heavily damaged, but standing upright. These vehicles are likely car bombs. Thees cars are shown in greater detail below. The damaged cars in the upper parking lot. The upturned car is in the middle left. There is another damaged car to the lower left that is not shown. (This picture is repeated here for ease of reference.) A car bomb solves all of the objections to aerial ordnance. It explains why no falling debris is seen in the videos. (Car bombs don’t fall from the sky.) It explains why no rocket remnants are found. There are only remnants of cars. A car bomb doesn’t have to produce a large crater (although it can), if the car chassis can partially shield the ground. Two nearby car bombs going off at the same time would produce the wide fire front seen in the video, and would cause two fires. A car bomb can be precisely located where it will produce the most casualties. It would also blow the windows out of the surrounding buildings. If one assumes that a Palestinian group committed the attack, then their weapon of choice would be a car bomb – not a rocket or other aerial ordnance. A car bomb is far more reliable than a rocket, and can be precisely located. Most importantly to the attackers, it would do an excellent job of killing, maiming and injuring people in the vicinity of the car bomb, who are the people sheltering in the open air plazas next to the parking lots. They would also use two cars in case one of the car bonbs failed to explode. Finally, there is concrete evidence of a car bomb from the most heavily damaged cars, which are shown below. The two most damaged cars are the likely car bombs. The first piece of concrete evidence is the badly damaged and overturned car. This type of car damage is seen from car bombs. As shown in the pictures above, the car doors are blown open, which a car bomb does, instead of being blown in, which a rocket does. The chassis of the overturned car below has part of the rear sheet metal blown outwards, and one side of the bottom frame is bent inwards. The explosion would have bent the sheet metal outwards, allowing the explosive gases to get under the car and turn the car upside down. These gases also would have made the crater found. (The frame was likely bent when the car landed.) Chassis of Overturned Car. S-M is the bent sheet metal. F is the bent frame, which is above the ‘F’. The second piece of evidence is from the other heavily damaged car. Its doors are blown out instead of in, and its roof is blown out – both characteristic of a bomb inside of the car. Also, the force of this blast drove this car into the adjacent truck. (The roof was crumpled when it was blown out, which is the reason for the areas that are bent in.) CONCLUSIONS and IMPLICTIONS The explosion at the Al Ahli Hospital is unlikely to have been caused by rockets, bombs, or other aerial ordnance. The physical evidence of the explosion and the resulting damage doesn’t fit with what is expected from rockets and bombs, as described in detail above. Instead, a car bomb fits the physical evidence of the explosion and the resulting damage. And, there is concrete evidence for a car bomb, as well as established expertise in car bombs among terrorists. If the conclusions of a car bomb causing the explosion are correct, then a number of implications follow. First, the car bomb had to be built, positioned, and set off by the Palestinians living in Gaza. Exactly which Palestinian group(s) in Gaza did this is not known. The two most likely groups are Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but there are other terrorist groups in Gaza. And, these groups may have been aware of this attack beforehand – especially Hamas, who controls Gaza. Second, Israel did not attack the Al Ahli Hospital, despite the claims of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and various governments and other groups. Third, Israel’s explanation of an Islamic Jihad rocket going off course (or disintegrating) and hitting the hospital isincorrect. A number of other implications can be drawn from these conclusions, but this article is trying to stick to the available facts and evidence. SOURCES The sources used in this article are given below, along with the links to their web sites, and some comments about the sites as appropriate. They are put here to make the sources and their links easy to locate for the reader, as well as to allow comments. Background and Details of the Explosion: Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion#Aftermath Al Alhi Hospital: Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital News Report on Explosion and Damage Found: BBC – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061; Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/al-ahli-arab-hospital-piecing-together-what-happened-as-israel-insists-militant-rocket-to-blame Video of Explosion: CNN – https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/10/18/gaza-hospital-deadly-blast-video-hamas-audio-mark-hertling-cnntm-vpx.cnn Two Fires From Explosion – IDF; https://videoidf.azureedge.net/79c67f70-e995-4451-a836-7f15d6e88a5d Damage Found: BBC and Guardian above; IDF – https://videoidf.azureedge.net/79c67f70-e995-4451-a836-7f15d6e88a5d Israeli’s Explanation of the Explosion: https://idfanc.activetrail.biz/ANC1810202362 Rockets Over the Hospital: IDF – https://idfanc.activetrail.biz/ANC18102023984 Video of Rocket Causing Explosion and CNN’s Finding of Not Definitive: BBC – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061 (couldn’t find video on Al Jazeera); CNN – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/al-ahli-arab-hospital-piecing-together-what-happened-as-israel-insists-militant-rocket-to-blame [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/20/2200511/-CAR-BOMB-NOT-ROCKETS-at-GAZA-HOSPITAL?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/