But the Times concluded that the missile in the video was never near the hospital. It was launched from Israel, not Gaza, and appears to have exploded above the Israeli-Gaza border, at least two miles away from the hospital.
The Times’s finding does not answer what actually did cause the Al-Ahli Arab hospital blast, or who is responsible. The contention by Israel and American intelligence agencies that a failed Palestinian rocket launch is to blame remains plausible.
Multiple videos assembled and analyzed by The Times show that militants were firing dozens of rockets from southwest of the hospital minutes before the incident, and the fiery explosion at the hospital is consistent with a failed rocket falling well short of its target with unspent fuel.
Moreover, the crater left from the impact was relatively small, a fact that Israel has cited in arguing that none of its munitions caused the blast, and could be consistent with a number of different munitions. Hamas has not produced a remnant of an Israeli munition or any physical evidence to back up its claim that Israel is responsible.
AP konkluderte med at raketten kom fra Palestina.
On 20 October 2023, the Associated Press (AP) reported that it concluded from analyzing “more than a dozen videos from the moments before, during and after the hospital explosion, as well as satellite imagery and photos” that “the rocket that broke up in the air was fired from within Palestinian territory, and that the hospital explosion was most likely caused when part of that rocket crashed to the ground”, while acknowledging the unavailability of definitive proof.