The coverage of the Gaza Hospital was written by the editors

The Times of Hamas: Investigation of a “Failed” Airstrike in the U.S. and Implications for Open Source Intelligence

Hamas quickly claimed, without presenting evidence, that it was an Israeli airstrike. The Israel Defense forces said that it was a failed militant rocket.

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group, denied responsibility for the rocket launch and blamed Israel for it. American and other international officials have said their evidence indicates that the rocket came from Palestinian fighter positions.

The Times continued to update its coverage as more information became available, reporting the disputed claims of responsibility and noting that the death toll might be lower than initially reported. Within two hours, the headline and other text at the top of the website reflected the scope of the explosion and the dispute over responsibility.

It was important for the Times editors to take more care with the initial presentation, and to be more explicit with what information could be verified, given the sensitive nature of the news. Newsroom leaders continue to examine procedures around the biggest breaking news events — including for the use of the largest headlines in the digital report — to determine what additional safeguards may be warranted.

“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.

Sound of a blast on a Christian-run facility in the afternoon of Tuesday night: U.N./Salt, Israeli airstrike, and human rights violations

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.

According to independent footage, the attack on the hospital started just before 7 p.m. local time.

Many experts 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. The investigators say they would normally find evidence at the site, which is why they have not found physical evidence yet.

But in the video closest to the blast, there’s the sound of something whizzing by. The rise and fall in pitch of the sound marks it as something moves away from the observer.

Earshot analyzed the sound and conducts “sonic investigations”. Earshot discovered that whatever fell was most likely from the east.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan says that this reduces the probability of this coming from the west. “It’s rocket science after all, so we can’t rule it out.”

Other people think that the publicly available evidence is not likely to give a definitive answer. The incident happened at night in a war zone and the available video might not be enough, says a former United Nations war crimes investigator.

He agrees with the people that are concerned about this. “But there’s been many deaths since that incident, right?”

He hopes the U.N. can eventually conduct a war crimes investigation to establish who was behind the explosion. Other issues are of urgent need of attention, he says. Hospitals are out of fuel and the U.N. facilities are being hit.