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naraburns  nihil supernum  6mo ago (text post)   29934 thread views

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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Informative thread on the Hospital Blast

at 0:23 you can hear what sounds like an Israeli fighter jet in the background. It appears roughly 2 seconds before we see the explosion at the hospital and disappears at 0:30.

Airstrike Hypothesis: Pros - The main strength of this argument is the initial audio, due to its similarities with another IDF airstrike. Additionally, the strength of the impact/shockwave had the ability to launch a human body and a car into the air. Cons - The current shrapnel dispersion aligns with shrapnel from a projectile impacting the road, as more shrapnel fans upwards and out - but is obscured by the trees/cars. Windows in relatively close proximity are also not all destroyed.

Misfire Hypothesis: Pros - Depending on the type of rocket fired by Hamas/PIJ we could potentially get a similar sound of impact. Also, the crater location is directly next to where the victims were in the yard and the cars (with fuel) that moved -Crater size supports this.

Newly reached conclusion: Based on the audio of the explosion, the shrapnel dispersion, and the newly published video: Both the misfire hypothesis & the airstrike hypothesis hold equal weight. I will update this again after experts in the respective fields analyze these issues.

All around a highly informative thread by an (independent) Israeli researcher. Debunks some evidence and brings in new evidence — of particular note is a video that seems to confirm the sound of an Israeli jet. He disconfirms the interception hypothesis based on the sound of the projectile and the magnitude of the blast. His next post will apparently include evidence from Earshot.NGO which specializes in sonic analysis.

This seems like a "debunking" with real "We Did It Reddit!" energy. The video I've seen of the actual crater does not appear in any plausible way the result of an "airstrike."

Both the misfire hypothesis & the airstrike hypothesis hold equal weight.

This strikes me as complete FUD. Every claim I've seen suggesting this was anything other than Hamas weaponry (whether as a false flag or just incompetence, who knows) appears primarily based on "but I want it to have been Israel, so let's imagine the possibilities, shall we?"

The American Press are stenographers for terrorists is a much more parsimonious response to this particular series of events.

Airburst munitions don't leave much of a crater. The large fireball in the video further supports this type of weapon.

Airburst munitions would have blown out every window in the area.

Incorrect; I think you are thinking of thermobaric explosives which use a big charge to create a vacuum and subsequent very impressive shockwave.

Most airburst ap munitions have (relativly) not a lot of explosive force. What they do have is elventybajillion hypersonic fragments to fuck up squishy things. I don't know what the IDF uses; but some of them are even directional.

Any reasonable amount of high explosive would have smashed a lot more windows just from the shock wave. And if that didn't do it, those eleventy-bajillion hypersonic fragments in an anti-personnel airburst would have. That's why I scoffed about a grenade; it's the only way you're getting an airburst munition down to little enough damage. Though that would have been TOO small and wouldn't have resulted in the roof damage. The damage doesn't match that kind of explosive. There's blast damage, but it it looks to have been from a fairly low-detonation-pressure blast. And there's shrapnel, but not enough for an anti-personnel weapon large enough to have that kind of blast. There's heat damage; tires on cars not right at the epicenter are flat, probably from melting. Also the videos show a bright fireball. It looks to me like a fairly small, slow, explosion not far off the ground (perhaps at 2nd story level, directly over the most damaged cars) which spread some sort of burning substance. I don't know if Israel has weapons which match that pattern, but it doesn't seem unreasonable for a malfunctioning rocket.

We'll see.

The actual orgs doing the investigation have tentatively ruled out the misfired rocket idea 'cause of the direction and angle it came in from, but it's vague now.

Re. specifics: HE needs a pretty big volume to smash windows at a distance, specially in an open area. The shockwave just isn't that powerful when it detonates in the air. Fragments from a purpose built device are direcitonal, they all go down the bottom arc. It's probably not that though because we'd see photos of swisscheese side panels on cars and such

Now you're suggesting a grenade?

No, most bombs are airburst. You don’t waste half your energy on the pavement unless you are trying to pierce a bunker.

I would not put much stake in amateur photo forensics.

Behold! A JDAM (pictured on right) with a DSU-33 airburst fuse.

Yeah, it wasn't one of those either.

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