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Jeff Israely

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Screenshot of the video showing the strike on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.
Geopolitics

Who’s To Blame For Gaza Hospital Bombing? The 8 Key Points To Consider

Also, Egyptian president appears to threaten war with Israel over Palestinian refugees, and German chancellor forced to evacuate his plane amid air raid alert.

Updated Oct. 19 at 1:25 p.m.

The bombing of the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City has dramatically escalated tensions between Israel and the Arab world. Both Israeli and Palestinian officials quickly accused the other of causing the explosion, which was inevitably followed by a kind of “social media war” of supporters of each side making the case for who is responsible. Israel has blamed a failed rocket launched by Palestinian militants, while Palestinians say the explosion was part of what’s been an ongoing air campaign on civilian targets in Gaza.

Endless streams of information are circulating online, but here are 7 points to consider when weighing these conflicting claims and making your own assessment of the tragic bombing.

1. Analyzing the damage: There has been much preliminary investigation into the damage done to the hospital, but so far findings are inconclusive. One analysis done by Italian publication Il Giornale finds that the laser-point bombs typically used by Israel do not produce the type of damage seen at the hospital. Other Israeli bombs that have hit Gazan buildings are generally designed to make the lower infrastructure of the building implode, destroying the foundations and thereby making the structure collapse inwards. This does not match imagery of the hospital rubble. Other investigations have been conducted by journalists at the BBC, who spoke to several experts about the situation. Two experts support the possibility that the large explosion could have been caused by a smaller impact in the car-park which then triggered a fuel reaction from the vehicles. However, the BBC stresses that there is still insufficient evidence to make certain conclusions for any theory.

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2. Geo-localisers: An organization working with OSINT(Open-source intelligence) used its geo-localization tools to determine where the hospital blast came from. GeoConfirmed posted their findings on twitter, stating that after analyzing footage from media network Al-Jazeera, which shows a rocket’s malfunction after being launched from within Gaza. The geo-locators look at the details of the rocket’s direction and fall to estimate a location of landing, which they conclude to be the hospital.


3. Audio of two Hamas militants: A video was released by the IDF showing audio of two Hamas militants discussing the possibility that the rocket was fired from a cemetery from behind the hospital. They claimed that the rocket “misfired and fell” on them, destroying the hospital. The video cannot be independently verified.


4. Israeli influencer’s deleted tweet: Just after the explosion was reported Tuesday night, Hananya Naftali, a pro-Israel influencer, tweeted that the Israeli air force struck a “terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza.”



Following the tweet’s wide circulation on social media as proof that Israel is responsible for the hospital explosion, the influencer apologized for his “error” and claimed that he got his information from a Reuters report that “falsely” blamed Israel.

While Naftali’s tweet can certainly be a piece of the puzzle, and is used to back the pro-Palastinian claim that Israel is responsible, it is unclear what access the influencer has to direct information related to military operations.

5. Time stamp on Israeli video: Posted Tuesday night by the official state of Israel account on Twitter, a video was presented as evidence that the rocket came from Hamas. It showed outgoing rocket fire from militants, but the video was later deleted as people pointed out that the time stamp did not match with the time that the explosion took place. the tweet which has been edited for the video to be removed.

6. Israel’s prior warnings: The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which runs the hospital, said it had already been a target of Israel. The hospital administration said it had received warnings from the IDF to evacuate the hospital on Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the explosion on Tuesday. It also claimed that two Israeli projectiles hit the hospital on Saturday, damaging the fourth floor. An IDF spokesperson acknowledged that the hospital had been called in recent days, but as part of a wider evacuation effort to convince Gaza’s civilians to flee south, and was “not in any way a target.”

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photo of a crashed motorcycle and a covered dead body
Ideas

Whose Victims? Who To Blame? How Do World Wars Begin? Awful Questions, No Easy Answers

Worldcrunch’s editor tries to make some kind of sense out of a week that felt senseless and tragic, perilous and inevitable all at once.

PARIS — Awful. That’s the word that kept returning this past week: in conversations, on WhatsApp exchanges and silent murmurs to myself while selecting photos for the articles we’re about to publish.

It is, of course, above all a reaction to the awful human toll: by far the world’s single worst terrorist attack since 9/11, a cold-blooded and close-up hunt by Hamas to kill as many innocent people as possible; and a predictably instantaneous Israeli response fueled by both vengeance and sense of futility that, even if shrouded by distance and military objectives, ultimately displays the same disregard for human life.

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9/11 Front Pages: World Newspapers Coverage 22 Years Ago
Geopolitics

9/11 Front Pages: World Newspapers Coverage 22 Years Ago

History happened instantly before our eyes 22 years ago on September 11, 2001 — and the global press was there to offer a first view on a day that continues to live in infamy. Here are 31 newspaper front pages and magazine covers.

Updated Sep. 11, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.

By the time United Airlines Flight 175 sliced into the second tower, news reporters and editors around the world knew they were facing the most monumental story of their lifetime. The Sep. 11 attacks forever changed the world, and put the powers of modern journalism, from real-time video coverage to deep news analysis (on deadline), to the test like never before.

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Photo of one of Elon Musk's tweet seen through the shape of Twitter's logo turned upside down
Future

Twitter Woke-Bashing With A Shot Of AI — On The Meaning Of Language, Circa 2023

For Worldcrunch’s editor-in-chief, the arrival of ChatGPT, a stunningly powerful AI-driven tool for automated writing, combined with the rising noise on social media, have brought us to a troubling inflection point in the way we communicate with each other.

-Analysis-

PARIS — It came up in my Twitter feed late last Sunday night. Like so much flashing across our phones these days, the words and source and visual elements get processed by our eyes-and-brains in a split second.

Should I stay or should I scroll?

It was a brief, flatly worded, yet provocative text with attached screenshot from the account of a certain @pmarca. I would stay.

If you’re on Twitter and interested in technology or finance, you’ll probably recognize the handle as belonging to Marc Andreessen, undisputed Silicon Valley nobility who founded the Netscape internet browser in the 1990s, before settling into an extra successful career as venture capitalist, big thinker and sometimes provocateur. Among other things, he coined the phrase “software is eating the world” and is mentor to such younger tech founders as Mark Zuckerberg.

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600 Miles To Moscow? Attack? Defend? What Ukraine’s Drone Strikes In Russia Really Mean
In The News

600 Miles To Moscow? Attack? Defend? What Ukraine’s Drone Strikes In Russia Really Mean

As they’ve done for the past year, Ukrainians have spent the past three days studying maps and calculating distances. But there's a difference now: The maps are of Russia.

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The unprecedented drone attacks this week of airfields deep inside Russian territory open a new phase in the war that is both tactical and symbolic. Though still without official confirmation from Kyiv, nobody doubts that the Ukrainian military executed the three strikes between Monday and Tuesday hundreds of kilometers inside Russia, which killed three and injured at least nine, including the strategic military air base of Engels.

Alexander Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military and political observer of the Information Resistance group, writes on his Telegram channel: "International war observers have seen that regardless of what struck the Russian airfields, it bypassed the lauded Russian air defense system and accomplished the task," he said. "They see not only that the supposed No. 2 military in the world not only drags old T-62 tanks and D-1 howitzers into the combat zone in Ukraine, but that it essentially has no air defense."

French weekly magazine L’Express declared: “Ukraine wants to show that Russian territory is not safe.”

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Kyiv Adds New Charge To Genocide Case Against Russia
In The News

Kyiv Adds New Charge To Genocide Case Against Russia

Ukraine’s case for pursuing Russia and its leadership for war crimes now includes Moscow’s current strategy of trying to cut off energy supplies to Ukrainian civilians by destroying the country’s power grid. Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin told the BBC that strikes on key energy infrastructure targeted "the full Ukrainian nation," which fall under the purview of attempted genocide.

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In contrast to other war crimes, genocide is the intention to physically destroy members of a particular population group or ethnicity. Kostin says the evidence of genocide against Russia has already included its forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia and giving them for adoption to Russian families; organizing so-called “filtration camps,” torturing and killing civilians — and now Moscow’s waging war against the entire population of Ukraine by trying to deprive millions of light, heat, and water in the winter.

Emergency power cuts continue throughout the country Monday, with the situation aggravated by the onset of winter: Nighttime temperatures have dropped to -8 °C, and -5 °C during the day.

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Macron Calls Putin’s Airstrikes On Civilian Infrastructure A War Crime
In The News

Macron Calls Putin’s Airstrikes On Civilian Infrastructure A War Crime

The French President leads a growing chorus of outrage against Russia, including the strongest condemnation to date from Pope Francis.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday led a rising chorus of outrage after unprecedented Russian air attacks on civilian infrastructure targets, which left up to 75% of Kyiv residents without power and water, and killed 10 people across Ukraine.

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“Strikes against civilian infrastructures are war crimes and cannot go unpunished,” Macron said.

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Photo of night time snow in Kyiv
In The News

First Snow In Ukraine Falls On Second Day Of Mass Air Strikes On Power Grid

Is this what Vladimir Putin's winter plans look like?

For the second straight day, Russia has launched a massive nationwide air attack against the infrastructure targets of major Ukrainian cities. Reports of explosions, buildings on fire and energy cuts were reported in Kyiv, Donbas, Dnipro and other cities around Ukraine.

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Russians fired at least 16 cruise missiles and launched five drones in the overnight hours and early morning, with Ukrainian defense forces managing to shoot down four cruise missiles and five Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones over Kyiv.

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G20 Pushing China To Join Resolution That Would Isolate Russia
In The News

G20 Pushing China To Join Resolution That Would Isolate Russia

French President Macron used his bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping to try to convince China to take a tougher line with Moscow.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave the clearest indication Tuesday that the G20 members are moving toward a resolution critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which would also denounce any threats about using nuclear weapons.

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"This is a consensus that is gaining ground here," Scholz told journalists in Bali.

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photo of ukrainian flags at Kherson city hall
In The News

Ukrainian Flag Rises In Kherson After Nine Months Of Occupation

This is among the most important signs of how the war has turned against Russia in the past three months.

Several reports say Ukrainian forces have arrived in central Kherson, after Russian troops made a chaotic retreat from the strategic southern city. The Ukrainian flag was seen flying from administrative buildings, and residents were photographed tearing down pro-Russian billboards.

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Though Moscow has explained the surrender of the city as an effort to avoid casualties, most military analysts consider it a major turning point in the war.

Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city occupied by Moscow’s forces soon after the Feb. 24 invasion, and has been a key objective in Kyiv’s major autumn counter-offensive that has forced unexpected retreats by Russian forces.

The latest gains by Ukrainian forces hold potentially enormous strategic consequences. The Kherson region borders Crimea and provides Moscow with a land corridor to the Black Sea peninsula that it seized in 2014.

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Russia Loses Kherson — Decisive Moment Or More War Of Attrition?
In The News

Russia Loses Kherson — Decisive Moment Or More War Of Attrition?

After several weeks of mixed messages, the announcement of Russia’s withdrawal from the strategic city of Kherson caught many off guard. It is in many respects a momentous turn, with Ukraine poised to retake a city captured by Russian forces in the very first days after the Feb. 24 invasion.

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The pullout is not only important in symbolic terms, but can wind up being a significant blow for Russia as the two-month-long Ukrainian counteroffensive can now advance eastward into the Donbas region.

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U.S. Warns About Putin’s Dangerous Doublespeak On Nuclear Threat
In The News

U.S. Warns About Putin’s Dangerous Doublespeak On Nuclear Threat

Vladimir Putin told the world yesterday "don't worry" about a nuclear attack, even as he's setting up a scenario that makes it more likely.

Vladimir Putin used his wide-ranging foreign policy speech Thursday to strike an overall threatening tone toward Ukraine and its Western partners, including a warning that the coming decade would be the “most dangerous and unpredictable” since World War II.

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Putin did, however, try to allay one specific fear: that he might choose to use nuclear arms in the war in Ukraine. Putin said Russia “had never talked about using nuclear weapons" and that using them “made no political or military sense.”

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