U.S. intelligence says “catastrophic motor failure” of rocket launched by Palestinian militants caused hospital blast

U.S. intelligence officers mentioned Tuesday that they used alerts intercepts, a number of video sources, pictures and geolocation applied sciences to reach at a “excessive confidence” evaluation that Israeli munitions weren’t the supply of the deadly blast at Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital final week, laying out new particulars about an incident that has infected tensions throughout the Center East.  

As a substitute, officers mentioned, the explosion was possible attributable to a rocket launched by Palestinian militants that suffered from “catastrophic motor failure,” which break up off after which propelled the weapon’s warhead into the hospital compound.

Analysts concluded with low confidence, based mostly on alerts intercepts, that the Palestine Islamic Jihad extremist group was liable for the launch. The officers who described the evaluation spoke on a situation of anonymity to explain delicate data. 

The intercepts concerned Hamas militants speculating about who had launched the weapon, officers mentioned.

“We won’t verify who they’re. We won’t verify that what they’re discussing within the intercept really befell,” an American intelligence official mentioned.   

The officers detailed two causes for his or her extra conclusive judgment that Israeli forces weren’t liable for the Oct. 17 explosion. First, they mentioned, the sunshine structural harm prompted to the hospital was per a rocket and “inconsistent with the bigger craters and broader blast results” which might be related to air-dropped munitions or artillery rounds.  

Secondly, they mentioned a number of flight movies of the launch indicated that the rocket was launched from throughout the Gaza strip and traveled northeast. Inside seconds of its launch, officers mentioned the “fluctuating depth” of the rocket’s plume steered an unstable motor combustion, which was adopted by one object hitting the bottom, and was quickly adopted by a second.  

“Our conclusion is that there was a catastrophic motor failure that possible occurred, which separated the motor and the warhead,” one of many officers mentioned. “The warhead landed within the hospital compound, and that was the second explosion, and a a lot larger one.”   

There was no replace to an preliminary, low-confidence evaluation by U.S. businesses that the blast resulted in 100 to 300 casualties, a depend decrease than what Hamas has claimed.

“It’s extremely laborious to get a great sense for what went on, particularly with the fog of battle,” one official mentioned.

The officers mentioned the failure charge for domestically produced rockets in Gaza was “fairly excessive.”  

“[T]his does match inside a longstanding, years-long sample, by way of rocket efficiency,” one official added. There was “no indication” that the hospital was an supposed goal of the militants, he mentioned.  

The officers mentioned intelligence analysts had reviewed open-source pictures and movies of any particles from the blast that might have come from Israeli munitions, as Palestinian forces have claimed, however had discovered no supporting proof. In addition they mentioned analysts had dominated out that any sort of Iron Dome interceptor prompted the breakup.  

“We’re assured that the video that we analyzed exhibits a rocket popping out of Gaza, struggling a catastrophic failure after which touchdown again in Gaza, not having been intercepted by Iron Dome,” one official mentioned.   

The officers mentioned the intelligence group couldn’t rule out that new data may come to gentle to alter their evaluation. 

A senior intelligence official who took half in Tuesday’s briefing additionally mentioned that intelligence businesses’ impartial visibility into extremist actions in Gaza was “restricted.”  

“Over time, what we have relied on is more and more our Israeli companions to share with us perception into what is going on on,” he mentioned.