Scott Ritter Claims Israeli Drone Caused Gaza Hospital Deaths

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corp. Major and highly qualified in the area of military weapons.

Scott Ritter: Both Hamas and Israel could have reasons to hide the truth about the Al-Ahli hospital blast (Full Article HERE)

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Importantly, the IDF has been directed to disregard collateral damage and civilian casualties through what is called the Hannibal Directive. This empowers the IDF to use minimal caution when attacking and firing on alleged terrorist targets sometimes resulting in significant casualties of innocent men, women and children.

Wikipedia:

The Hannibal Directive (Hebrew: נוהל חניבעל) (or "Procedure" or "Protocol") is a controversial procedure that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have used to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces.

It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and the subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of the directive has never been published and until 2003 Israeli military censorship even forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The directive has been changed several times. At one time the formulation was that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces."[2]

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Scott Ritter Article Excerpts:

A rudimentary analysis of the crater reveals a direction of travel that suggests that the rocket likely originated from a location situated to the south-southwest of the hospital, which, to some extent, supports the Israeli assertion. However, because the video evidence does not sustain this claim, one cannot jump to the conclusion that the rocket in question came from the PIJ. Moreover, the size of the crater points to a small warhead possessing less than 50 pounds of high explosives, opening the door to the possibility that a different weapon was used that night – not a PIJ rocket and not an Israeli bomb.

There was another weapon that Israel was making extensive use of in the Gaza conflict – the Mikholit air-to-ground missile, carried on Hermes 450 drones, which were used to conduct so-called “roof knocking” strikes designed to alert residents of buildings designated for destruction to flee. The Mikholit was also used to carry out precise strikes designed to neutralize a target while minimizing collateral damage.

If we overlay the possibility that an Israeli Hermes 450 drone fired a Mikholit air-to-ground missile, which impacted the parking lot of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on the night of October 17, 2023, an alternative scenario of what possibly occurred starts to emerge.

Naftali’s original tweet speaks of a “terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza.” He also speaks of “human shields” used by Hamas. This implies that the Israelis possessed extremely accurate information about the nature of the target and understood the target was surrounded by a sea of Palestinian civilians taking shelter in the hospital parking lot.

The Mikholit missile is guided to its target by using a laser/electro-optical system (i.e., a nose-mounted camera) or a GPS-homing warhead. The laser/EO warhead has an accuracy of one meter, while the GPS warhead has an accuracy of five meters. Either could have been employed, although given the specificity of the target description, more precision would appear desirable. The warhead of the Mikholit missile contains around 30 pounds of high explosives and can be either a penetration weapon or a steel ball fragmentation warhead. Likewise, the warhead can be configured to detonate on contact with the ground, have a delay (useful for penetrating bunkers and/or buildings), or use a proximity detonation (for the fragmentation warhead.) Given the existence of both a single crater and evidence of fragmentation impacts on the walls of adjacent buildings, the Israelis could have used a single Mikholit missile configured with a unitary high explosive warhead fused to detonate on impact.

According to Naftali’s deleted tweet, the Israelis confirmed multiple fatalities among the targeted terrorists. This implies an ability to distinguish between the terrorists and civilians, which likewise implies the existence of information accurate enough to pinpoint a cluster of people on the ground and that these people were being visually monitored throughout the attack. Reverse engineering these extrapolations, the following narrative can be postulated.

A Hamas cell was compelled to depart from its underground shelter and take up a position in the parking area of the Al-Ahli Hospital. Naftali’s statement regarding Hamas “launching rockets from hospitals” and “using civilians as human shields” likewise implies insight into the operational methodology of those targeted. This specificity suggests that the Israelis were operating using very precise intelligence, such as the ability to intercept and track the communications associated with a specific Hamas cell or leader.