Posted by Bill Ryan
(here)
Most interestingly,
Larry Johnson (highly experienced, well-connected, and nobody's fool) now concludes that
Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. (In his initial, earlier article he'd said he was open to the idea that it was an accident by Hamas.)
After Weighing the Evidence, Israel Appears Responsible for the Bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital
I don’t think this post will make anyone happy and will certainly stir up criticism. I have been looking at the photographic evidence and listening to the audio of the missile impact/blast. Please understand that I am neither anti-Israel or pro-Israel. Ditto for Palestinians. Put me in the category of someone who thinks the Israelis and Palestinians deserve a chance to live in peace and security and should not be killing or oppressing each other.
I am now ready to offer my opinion. I believe the hospital parking area was struck by an Israeli munition, most likely a Hellfire launched from a drone. A friend with expertise in this area passed this on:
An MQ-9 carrying thermobaric versions of the hellfire missile (something we’ve supplied to Israel) is very possible. That particular version of the missile (AGM-114N) provides a particularly nasty thermobaric/incendiary blast that was originally designed to be skipped/or detonated at the mouth of a cave opening and burn out all the oxygen (suffocating the inhabitants further down the tunnel). My leading theory? Israel might have thought there was a Hamas tunnel system in the area and was taking a shot. That impact crater fits.
Why do I dismiss the charge that Hamas was responsible? Please look and listen to the footage of the blast:
I have searched the web and cannot find a single example of Hamas launching a weapon with this sound and blast signature against Israel during the past ten years. If you can find one, please let me know. I will stand corrected. The rockets Hamas routinely fires at Israel are not precision guided projectiles and they are not accelerating beyond the speed of gravity as they fall towards the earth with a great “Whooshing” sound. More importantly, the Hamas “warheads” are relatively small and have not caused mass casualties in Israel comparable to what was seen at Al-Ahli Hospital.
Some have suggested, wrongly, that it was an MK-84 bomb (a 2000 pound monster). Look at this and judge for yourself.
As you can see for yourself, any of the MK variants would have left an enormous crater in the parking lot. There is no big crater.
Israel did itself no favors yesterday (Thursday) in trying to distance itself from the Hospital bombing when it attacked part of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, an important historical and religious landmark. According to the
Wall Street Journal, the Israeli military confirmed it bombed the church. Hamas supporters merely point to the attack on Saint Porphyrius as more proof that this is Israel’s standard operating procedure. The church bomb killed 17, which included some children, and wounded dozens.
Israel justified the attack:
Explaining the damage done to the church, the IDF stressed that “Hamas intentionally embeds its assets in civilian areas and uses the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields”.
Which raises an interesting point about double-standards. If Russia attacked a church in Ukraine and killed children, women and disabled people, it would be rightly condemned for committing a war crime. What galls the Arab and Muslim world is that there is no similar outcry from the West, especially America.
There is some good news. Groups of Jews and Palestinian supporters have joined together to protest the actions of Netanyahu’s Government. While these protests are small, it is a hopeful sign that Jews and Palestinians can come together a call for a peaceful solution. However, Israel is still pursuing a more “cowbell” strategy.
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