What we know
- Israel had shelled the hospital 2 times before the attack on Oct 17
- Israeli military had demanded the hospital evacuate multiple times before the attack on Oct 17
- Israeli military has been hitting hospitals and civilian areas since Oct 17
- The majority of the Palestinian rockets do not have the payload to do so much damage
- Israeli government has consistently lied about these types of things in the past
- IDF Digital Spokesman posted a tweet admitting responsibility for the attack, only to quickly delete it
- The sound and damage is consistent with weapons Israel has, for example the MK84
So if we are just to do some basic considerations. Occam's Razor.
If Israel did not hit the hospital then
a) out of all the rockets to misfire, of which we haven't heard of any significant misfires up until now, it had to be the rare and few powerful ones that Palestinians have. This is a low probability event. Much more likely that in a barrage of rockets, the small ones misfire because the overwhelmingly majority is small
b) out of all the places to land, it lands precisely on top of a hospital in precisely a way that kills as many people as possible. Another low probability event. Realistically, the vast majority of failed rockets would land in areas that are not strategically relevant or are not a humanitarian area.
c) this rocket just happens to land on the same exact hospital that Israel had attacked multiple times previously and had demanded evacuation of. another low probability event.
d) israel has been known on multiple occasions to outright lie about something when it looks like they are committing war crimes. during the killing of the journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh the playbook went like this..
- Deny something happened
- OK, something did happen but it was the Palestinians who did it. Here's a video that proves it
- OK, it wasn't the Palestinians. We don't know who did it
- OK, we did it but it was an accident because Palestinians were shooting at us. USA does an "investigation with Israeli data" and finds that it was totally accidental and not deliberate.
Independent investigation show that the killing was likely deliberate and nobody was shooting at the Israelis at the time of her death. She was shot in cold blood, in what some people believe is a targeted killing. But at this point, both the US and Israel refuse any criminal investigation.
This playbook, coincidentally, looks very similar to the US's response to their airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan. Deny, blame the Afghanis, eventually concede it was them and claim it was an accident. No criminal investigations.
Turns out countries that openly preach about their "humanitarian values" have a lot of incentive to lie when events like this get mass media coverage. So, is this a low probability event or a high probability? I don't know.
e) the digital spokesman for the israelis openly admitted to the bombing and then quickly deleted the tweet. is it because he was mistaken or because he was told to delete the tweet? high probability or low probability? I don't know.
Let's do a little formula. LPE = low probability event, UPE = unknown probability event
LPE x LPE x LPE x UPE x UPE
Let's try some different values to get a broad estimate.
LPE = 20% UPE = 50%
0.2 * 0.2 * 0.2 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.002 = 0.2%
LPE = 50% UPE = 80%
0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 0.08 = 8%
LPE = 80% UPE = 90%
0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.9 * 0.9 = .41 = 41%
So depending on how likely you believe the above events, you can estimate a different probability. For example, if you think that the chances of the Palestinians having their rocket misfire over virtually the worst possible spot it could have is 80%, you may reach a different conclusion than if you believe the chances are actually let's say 20%
The point of the exercise is to show that there's a lot of reason to believe Israel did it and there's a lot of reason to believe Israel is lying (including making up videos, like they've done in the past), and there's a lot of reason to believe the US is blindly backing up their lies (like they've done in the past)
Please don't mistake this for some sort of serious scientific attempt at proving the Israelis wrong. It's just a thought exercise to illustrate the point that for this to have been the Palestinians, there would have had to be a lot of little coincidences. Which CAN happen. Unlikely events happen all the time. But in situations like this, I think we have to be realistic and look at the simplest answer. I personally think it's very likely Israel did it. I don't know, and I don't think we'll ever know.
But maybe in some time we'll have an independent investigation and Israel will ultimately own up to it. Only time will tell.
