Good morning. We're covering the evidence on the Gaza hospital explosion — as well as Sam Bankman-Fried, a stalemate in Ukraine and The Beatles. |
 | | The site of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.Shadi Al-Tabatibi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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Last month, a few days after the explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, I walked you through the debate over who was responsible. At the time, there wasn't much evidence that outsiders could assess on their own. The dispute revolved around competing claims from Israel and Hamas. |
But more evidence has since emerged. In today's newsletter, I'll explain it. |
The hospital explosion is important in its own right: It was the biggest news story in the world for days and sparked protests across the Middle East. The explosion also has a larger significance: It offers clues about how to judge the claims about civilian casualties that are central to Hamas's war message. |
My colleague Julian Barnes, who covers intelligence from Washington, describes the explosion evidence as falling into four categories — akin to four legs of a stool. Let's look at each of them: |
The most complicated part of the evidence involves the various cameras that captured the sky above Gaza on the night of Oct. 17. |
The Associated Press, CNN and The Wall Street Journal each analyzed one set of footage and concluded that a malfunctioning rocket from Gaza — presumably from Palestinian fighters — caused the explosion. Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials have made the same argument. |
But an examination by The New York Times's Visual Investigations team exposed flaws in the footage analysis. Times reporters used additional cameras to conclude that the projectile actually came from Israel — and did not land near the hospital, which means it couldn't have caused the explosion. At least two independent analysts, as well as The Washington Post, agree. |
The Post's analysis also explains that a separate video does show a barrage of rockets from Gaza, headed toward the hospital, just before the explosion. One of them could have been "a stray rocket launched by a Palestinian armed group," The Post wrote. The Times analysis notes that Palestinian and Israeli forces were each firing weapons in the area around the time of the explosion. |
Bottom line: The video evidence remains murky. |
 | | Near Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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Israeli airstrikes tend to leave fingerprints. The bombs typically weigh 2,000 pounds and create huge craters. Shrapnel is extensive. Buildings are destroyed. |
None of these descriptions fit the hospital explosion, according to videos and photos. The hole in the ground resembles a large pothole. Cars are burned out, not flattened. Nearby buildings show little structural damage, and there is little shrapnel. "The damage is too light to be from a 2,000-pound bomb," Julian says. |
This pattern doesn't prove the explosion's source was Palestinian; Israel does use smaller munitions, such as howitzer shells. But the explosion appears consistent with the rockets that Palestinian groups were launching toward Israel that night. One possibility is that the damage was limited because it came mostly from the leaking fuel of a malfunctioned rocket, ignited on impact, rather than from the explosion of the rocket head. |
Bottom line: The scene after the explosion is inconsistent with that of a typical Israeli airstrike. |
Hamas, not Israel, controls the area around the hospital and has had more than two weeks to scour it for the evidence, such as shrapnel, that even a smaller Israeli weapon likely would have left. "The evidence of an Israeli airstrike wouldn't simply evaporate into the night," Julian said. (In Ukraine, physical evidence is one way that Times reporters solved the mystery of a September explosion.) |
Yet Hamas has produced no signs of an Israeli airstrike, as my colleagues Patrick Kingsley and Aaron Boxerman have explained. Instead, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, said, "The missile has dissolved like salt in the water." |
Bottom line: Hamas's failure to produce evidence suggests the group may not want outsiders to see it. |
Israel has released the recording of what it says is an Oct. 17 conversation in which one Hamas member tells another that a Palestinian rocket caused the explosion. "It's from us?" one asks. "It looks like it," the other replies. |
Israel has also shared at least three similar taped conversations with the U.S., and U.S. officials have judged them to be genuine. |
Bottom line: The conversations are relevant evidence, but they're not proof. It's possible that Hamas fighters were themselves confused. |
 | | In the aftermath of the blast.Shadi Al-Tabatibi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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I try to avoid the journalistic sin known as bothsidesism when information favors one version of events over another. And while much about the hospital explosion remains unclear, the available evidence points toward a Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike, as the more likely cause. |
"One of the legs of the stool — the videos of a rocket exploding in the sky — now looks a lot weaker than it did," Julian said. "But the other pieces of evidence remain in place. And the overall conclusion of the American intelligence agencies appears sound: It was a malfunctioning Palestinian rocket that most likely hit the hospital." |
This evidence, in turn, suggests that the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, has deliberately told the world a false story. U.S. officials believe that the health ministry also inflated the toll when it announced 500 deaths; the actual number appears to be closer to 100. |
This episode doesn't mean that Gazan officials always mislead or that Israeli officials always tell the truth. Even in this case, for example, Israeli officials have cited video evidence that Times reporting suggests does not support their argument. Both sides deserve continued scrutiny. |
But the hospital explosion offers reason to apply particular skepticism to Hamas's claims about civilian deaths — which are an undeniable problem in this war. Hamas's record on the war's most closely watched incident does not look good. |
If more evidence becomes available, I will cover it in a future newsletter. |
- Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, arrived in Tel Aviv to urge Israel's government to pause the fighting to free hostages and distribute humanitarian aid.
- The Israeli military said that its soldiers, who have encircled Gaza City, were battling "face to face" with Hamas fighters. These maps show where Israel is advancing.
- The U.N. human rights agency said it had "serious concerns" that recent airstrikes on the Jabaliya area could constitute a war crime; Israel rejected that, arguing that Hamas bears responsibility for civilian deaths because it hides its commanders among everyday Gazans.
- A Hamas official vowed more attacks against Israel similar to those of Oct. 7.
- Violence has surged in the West Bank as Jewish settlers attack Palestinians who live there.
- The U.S. is flying surveillance drones over the Gaza Strip. Officials said the drones were helping hostage recovery efforts.
- "The Daily" explains how a war in 1948 shaped the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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- The House passed a bill, written by Republicans, to provide money for Israel. It also cuts I.R.S. funding and lacks funds for Ukraine — and faces bipartisan opposition in the Senate.
- Cornell University canceled classes for today after a 21 year-old computer science major was charged with threatening Jewish students.
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 | | Ukrainian troops firing grenade launchers.Nicole Tung for The New York Times |
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- Ukraine's top military commander said the war with Russia was at a stalemate. The front line has barely shifted for months.
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Expand your understanding. Enhance your skills. Embrace your curiosity. |
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Sports diplomacy: Saudi Arabia is continuing its push into professional sports with a bid to buy two prestigious tennis tournaments. |
 | | The Beatles in 1962.Getty Images |
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A bittersweet goodbye: "If I make it through, it's all because of you," John Lennon sings on "Now and Then," a new Beatles song released yesterday. The voice is authentically Lennon's — he recorded it on a cassette tape not long before his death. George Harrison recorded a guitar part in the 1990s, and Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney recently completed the song, using technology from the filmmaker Peter Jackson to extract Lennon's voice from the tape. You can hear it here. |
"For anyone who grew up on or came to love the Beatles," the Times critic Jon Pareles writes, "there's an extra pang in hearing the full band's last work together, even as a digital assemblage." |
- Jeff Bezos has announced that he is leaving Seattle, home to Amazon's headquarters, to move to Miami.
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 | | Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times |
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Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David |
 | Editor: David Leonhardt News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Lauren Jackson, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch |
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