First, I want to preface this analysis by pointing out that this account has been spreading disinformation and denialism about Ukraine for over a year. They have never acted in good faith, but for the people sharing his crap without knowing this I'll refute it at face value.
The argument is immediately refutable since the same camera did film the explosion at the hospital, in footage youve probably seen, an hour earlier, at 6:59pm.
The time stamp in the video he shared is an hour later, at 7:59pm.
Note that the IDF claims the explosion happened at 6:59pm (and claimed that before this video was released), the first open reports of the blast were around 7:15-7:20pm, all well before the video this jabroni is sharing, which is literally timestamped 7:59pm.
He stupidly claims that the reason for this is that the camera's timestamp was off by an hour.
Not impossible in its own right, but very stupid here because if the footage that says 6:59 was actually shot at 5:59, it'd be daylight.
He then also tried to geolocate the video, and gets it wrong.
The cone of view he's claiming the camera can show isn't even pointing at Gaza City. It literally would not show the hospital, and the rocket fire would be shooting from Israel (into Israel)
Morever, let's look at the picture and geolocation side-by-side. Even if it was this building, he's looking at the wrong side of it. The buildings he is claiming it shows also has a column of windows between the black decal and the corner, which the footage shows isnt the case.
In fairness, the geolocation is only off by about 200m. But it is facing the entirely wrong direction. The camera was actually at 31.439871, 34.573232 and (obviously) facing West towards Gaza and not north towards Ashkelon.
This can also be demonstrated by the road and building in the bakground, along with the facade of the closest building.
So now we know the real location the video was filmed from, we can look at the angles. The bearing from the camera to the hospital is around 304°. More notably, it is just to the left of the corner of the right-most close building. Exactly where it appears in the 6:59 video.
Meanwhile in the 7:59 video, the blast is around 1/3 of the way between that background building and the tower. At a bearing of around 297.5°. If we draw these bearings out as far as Gaza, it's obvious that the 7:59pm explosion we see is kilometres away from the hospital.
This is an example of the damage pseudo-OSINT analysis can do. Poor techniques used to 'confirm' an already-made-up-mind results in incorrect geolocation, incorrect chronolocation and completely wrong conclusions. And ends up being ammo for denialists and others.
FYI they deleted the tweet saying that the camera's clock was off by an hour, because that would mean the night-time footage wouldve been filmed before sunset. but here it is for posterity's sake.
Whoops, the geolocation tweet is gone too...
Also, the bearing towards the rocket fire in the 6:59pm video (above the left-hand-side of the 2nd-storey in the home in the background) gives a line that points almost directly at the IDF-claimed, radar detected, rocket launch site. Again proving this is video of that incident.
The whole thread has been nuked now since it was obviously wrong, but a number of other serial spreaders of disinformation are still spreading the video, so just keep an eye out.
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This is why it can be known as the 'Iron-Dome shield', each missile battery can defend against ~150km2 and targets the rockets towards the end of their trajectory, after the fuel has burnt off and the trajectory is more predictable.
You can see this in this video, where the rockets are struck after reaching the peak of their trajectory and at the beginning of the descent-phase
🧵Now that day has broken, and we're getting better evidence, I'm willing to share some PRELIMINARY thoughts on the al-Ahli hospital explosion. The photos of the scene are, to me, not consistent with an airstrike and are not consistent with claims that 500+ people were killed.
First, I should mention that this thread isn't a forensic or expert investigation, I'm just sharing what I see and what I've seen previously. Nor am I attributing one way or another. Nor does this negate the countless civilians killed in Israel's campaign.
Photos of the aftermath show that the vast majority of the damage is from fire. Only 3 cars show any clear sign of kinnetic/structural damage. And for two of them, the general structure remains intact - despite clear damage.
A 🧵of military defeats of the Burmese junta, who have faced 2 two years of concerted, nationwide revolt against the Sit-Tat and their coup.
Starting with the Daru H'ka bridge outpost. The first major outpost S of Sumprabum, fell to the KIA on Wednesday (2023-09-20) morning.
On Monday (2023-09-18), PDF/CDF fighters overran a Pyu Saw Htee checkpoint near Kant Thet at the entrance to Ka-Pa-Sa (Defence Manufacturing Plant) 23. This attack highlights junta's dwindling manpower, relying on civilian militias to protect a missile-manufacturing facility.
On Sunday (2023-09-17), the Sit-Tat launched a military raid from their bases in Indaw towards the Maw Lu town around 30km North. They made it around 3-5km before being attacked by a combined force of KIA and PDF troops before being entirely blocked by the KIA/PDF 6km from town.
🧵I've updated this fortifications data to include all Southern occupied Ukraine (Donetsk city - Crimea - Kinburn) with 2,389 fortifications traced from new satellite imagery. A download link is included. nrg800.users.earthengine.app/view/russianfo…
So what does this mean for the Ukrainian offensive?
Obviously, the purpose of this data is to provide insight to people far more knowledgable in the military tactics and strategy than me, so I won't focus too much on my armchair general takes, but I do want to share a few quick things that mapping this mas made me realise.
These fortifications look formidable. Russia has clearly invested SIGNIFICANT time and manpower into building a robust and comprehensive main-defensive line behind the front, and these provide challenges to Ukraine that it has not faced before in its offensive operations.
While Ukraine's offensive in Zaporizhia is starting to ramp up, Russia has spent the last 2 months fortifying defensive lines across the entire oblast.
Ive made an interactive map that shows the most recent satellite imagery and these lines. nrg800.users.earthengine.app/view/russianfo…
Download below
The satellite imagery shows land over the past two months (since April 15th). Overall, around 1,000 fortification lines have been mapped in the area. These certainly present a challenge to Ukrainian forces trying to move through the landscape and attack in depth.
The fortification data can be freely downloaded (incl for Google Earth) here: mega.nz/file/LVZnQJoA#…
Anyone is free to use it in any map or publication with attribution to Nathan Ruser/ASPI.
I have tried to be comprehensive, but don't consider this a complete survey.
This is incredible, since the collapse of Kakhovka Dam, you can actually see (in @PlanetImagery) the baymetry reflected in the surface currents and flow along with the old path of the river before it was dammed in 1956!
If anyone knows why this is happening, super fascinated.
@PlanetImagery It is also evident in Sentinel-2 imagery, though less clearly.
I'm sure it must be some form of how old stagnant water is mixing with the surface flow? but very interested in getting a better idea.
@PlanetImagery Here's Harel talking about some of the possibilities on an early post of mine (that I deleted because it was worded as though you actually were seeing the bathymetry not just it reflected in the currents)