How can you determine who fired the Gaza Hospital rocket?

By ITV News Multimedia Producer Connor Parker

The explosion at the al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday led to immediate claims and counterclaims over who was responsible and what exactly happened.

Amid all the confusion there was a huge wave of videos and information being shared on social media, with many jumping quickly to conclusions.

But rather than the modern age of instant information making it easier to find out the truth behind events in many ways it has made it harder.

Within minutes of the attack, Hamas claimed the hospital had been hit by an Israeli strike and more than 500 civilians had been killed.

International outrage quickly spread, with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cancelling a conference with US President Joe Biden in response.

Hours later the Israeli military denied involvement and blamed a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group in the region.

Almost all of this happened while President Biden was flying from the US to Israel and by the time he was able to speak he backed the Israeli government's line.

In a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu President Biden said: "Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you."

As morning broke in Gaza more information about the strike began flooding the internet raising more questions than answers.

So, can anyone make a definitive call on what actually happened?

How do you carry out a proper investigation?

Despite a flood of information swarming social media in the immediate aftermath of the attack determining responsibility was effectively impossible.

To carry out a full investigation, Wayne Jordash KC, a human rights and criminal law expert who is a partner at Global Rights Compliance told ITV News you need three things.

He said these were an examination of the crime scene, video and photographic evidence and to a lesser extent witness testimony.

He said from the crime scene you could find "remnants of the missile at the scene, the examination of any impact such as the crater," adding "absence of a crater can tell you quite a lot."

Mr Jordash said: "You're also looking at damage to immediate structures, i.e the hospital or the car park at the side, car damage and so on."

"You're also looking at casualties and obviously analysis of casualties in terms of chemicals to reveal what type of explosives have been used."

He said in the case of the hospital attack, Hamas and Israel use distinct weapon systems "so a proper examination of the scene can tell you quite a lot and point you strongly in one direction."

Although all of this analysis sounds helpful, the reality is getting a team of experts to the sites is often difficult.

Mr Jordash said it would be "practically impossible" to get any investigators to the al-Ahli hospital at the moment due to the ongoing siege of Gaza.

He also noted many organisations do offer to investigate but "very few are impartial and wholly independent."

He said: "There'll be a rush to do these investigations, Biden's claimed the Americans are going to do it, the Israelis are, Hamas will and countless organisations will but few unfortunately will be perceived to be credible investigations."

Video and photographic evidence is easier to collect but extensive verification needs to be carried out.

All of this evidence collection then needs to be analysed by specialists to check it is genuine and what can be gleaned from it, he says.

He added the "final piece of the puzzle" is witness testimony which would then "corroborate or not your findings based on the technical viewpoints".

Who can carry out these investigations?

Although many organisations will draw up conclusions on the attack very few can be both impartial and impactful.

Mr Jordash's Global Rights Compliance group and others specialising in international law sometimes create reports on major incidents that can be used as evidence in a court.

Major international charities also carry out investigations to get to the bottom of certain atrocities but this is far from justice.

In reality, the only groups who prosecute are the UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC), who Mr Jordash described as the "only show in town."

The ICC is independent of the UN and has legal power over much of the world to issue arrest warrants and convict people suspected of crimes against humanity.

But the ICC often struggles to get cases off the ground and it has not been ratified by Israel, making a proper investigation even more difficult.

Mr Jordash said the UN could also conduct an investigation but "it usually doesn't."

What role can journalists play?

Although unlikely to convince government or military groups to change their story, verification by media groups can often sway the court of public opinion.

ITV News, the BBC, CNN and several other major news outlets have verification teams that analyse all of the information coming out of the site of an attack and sift through what is real and what is fake.

On top of this, there has also been an explosion in recent years of so-called 'open source intelligence'.

These are social media accounts that also analyse data, statements and images being shared online to reach conclusions about the cause of atrocities.

The most famous of these is the investigative journalism website Bellingcat which has produced reports on several major international incidents that contract the official narrative.

Mr Jordash cited Bellingcat as one of the few specialists in video and photographic analysis that had a "proven track record of good credible investigations which have not been shown to anything other than independent and impartial."

In the wake of the explosion at the al-Ahli hospital Bellingcat founder Elliot Higgins began sharing footage and images he had seen about the attack.

Although he has not stated who could be responsible he has noted current evidence he has seen points to the rocket or missile that caused the explosion to having a "pretty small payload."

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