A Harvard University study has revealed that, in the 40 days following Oct. 7, 2023, Israel struck areas "dangerously close" to hospitals in Gaza using US-made Mark-84 (MK-84) bombs.
Researchers from the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University examined craters caused by MK-84 explosions around hospitals in Gaza between Oct. 7 and Nov. 17, 2023.
The study, which utilized satellite imagery, included a detailed analysis of 36 hospitals and 592 craters.
The proximity of US-made MK-84 bombs used by the Israeli military to hospitals in Gaza was measured as part of the study, published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health.
The study found that the MK-84 bombs, which have a blast radius capable of killing people within 360 meters and causing injuries and building damage up to 800 meters away, were detonated "dangerously close" to hospitals in Gaza.
Gaza hospitals bombed indiscriminately
Experts identified craters from bomb explosions as close as 14 meters and as far as 360 meters from nine of the 36 hospitals studied.
They found that 83% of hospitals were within 800 meters of at least one bomb impact.
The findings revealed that the Israeli military dropped over 100 MK-84 bombs near the area designated as an "evacuation zone" for Palestinian civilians, with 38 of those bombs exploding within 800 meters of hospitals in the evacuation zone.
The study highlighted that during the period when the satellite images were captured, tens of thousands of civilians were using these hospitals and the surrounding areas as shelters.
The results showed that hospitals, which are granted special protection under international humanitarian law, were bombed indiscriminately.
US weapons are also used in Lebanon where entire residential buildings are destroyed using massive bombs, likely supplied by the US, too.
A ten-story block in Beirut's Tayouneh neighbourhood was flattened by an Israeli strike on Tuesday which likely employed a SPICE 2000 missile kit. The building was "completely destroyed", according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
Shaan Shaikh, a missiles expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Lebanese news outlet L'Orient Today that the missile was a SPICE 2000.
Images of the missile falling towards the building were also captured, allowing for comparison with previously published images of SPICE 2000 kits.
Who is arming Israel?
Media outlet's analysis of Western Support that enabled Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon
Monitoring and analysis of navigation data showed that more than 6,000 military flights were recorded in the region linked to Western countries during the year of the Israeli war on Gaza, with the establishment of a permanent air bridge with massive Western support to support Israel in bombing the besieged Strip with tons of bombs.
A year after the events of October 7, 2023, the United States and Western countries are still rushing to provide intelligence and logistical support, in addition to sending shipments of military aid to support Israel in its war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, in addition to its recent attacks on Lebanon.
The Sanad Monitoring and Verification Agency, affiliated with Al Jazeera Network, monitored military flight activity and analyzed its data from October 7, 2023 until the beginning of the same month of this year, using navigational monitoring and geographic analysis tools.
Sanad monitored - through analyzing navigational data - about 1,900 military transport flights, more than 70% of which headed to military bases in Cyprus, Greece and Italy, which since October 7, 2023 have been used as advanced support bases for Israel, while the rest headed directly to Israel.
Sanad also tracked more than 1,600 aerial reconnaissance flights, of which Israel carried out only about 20%, in addition to documenting 1,800 flights to refuel aircraft in the skies of the region.
Britain
The data shows that Britain is ahead of all countries with more than 47% of reconnaissance flights. The data revealed that the British Air Force used the Shadow R1 aircraft in the majority of flights.
These aircraft, developed by the American company Raytheon, are characterized by an advanced set of surveillance and sensor devices that enable them to carry out intelligence missions, impose continuous monitoring of movements on the ground, track vehicles, and carry out target identification missions.
This type of aircraft was monitored in about 645 flights during that period, while it used the B-8 aircraft in at least 6 reconnaissance flights, and all of these flights took off mainly from Cyprus, Israel, and Greece.
Britain also used its Typhoon fighter jets in at least 135 flights in the skies of Israel, and was able to intercept several Iranian attack drones.
The Typhoon is classified as a multi-role, highly efficient combat aircraft that allows the pilot to perform multiple roles and functions, and it specializes in rapid air response missions.
Israel
As for Israel, it participated in turn using a number of aircraft, the most important of which was the Oron aircraft, which, according to monitoring, carried out 167 sorties during the year of the war after it entered full service for the first time following Operation "Noah's Flood".
The Oron is one of the largest Israeli air units, and can detect thousands of targets in seconds over an area of thousands of kilometers, according to the head of the Israeli military research and development department, Brigadier General Yaniv Rotem.
Israel also used at least two Eitam early warning aircraft, and the aircraft operates within the same squadron in more than 58 monitored flights, in addition to two Shavit aircraft in at least 16 flights. It also used two Beechcraft P-200T Zofit 5 aircraft in 45 flights, while the Beechcraft P-200T Zofit 3 aircraft had a balance of 35 flights.
United States
As for the United States, it has extensively used its large maritime reconnaissance aircraft, the Poseidon P-8A and the Maritime Patrol Aircraft, in more than 167 reconnaissance flights. Boeing RC-135 and Lockheed EP-3 aircraft were used in more than 90 reconnaissance flights, while the Navy-operated MQ-4C Triton drone appeared in more than 73 flights, according to the observed navigation data.
The United States also used the Boeing E-3 Sentry early warning aircraft, equipped with an integrated battle management and control platform, in 16 flights.
Fueling and military transport
In addition to reconnaissance aircraft, Sanad monitored approximately 1,800 refueling flights in the skies over the region, and the analytical data shows that Israel carried out up to 950 flights, followed by the British Air Force with more than 560 air refueling flights.
The analysis of the monitored data reveals that approximately 365 military transport flights headed directly to Israel, in addition to 840 flights to military bases in Cyprus, Greece and Italy, which are used extensively to support the occupation, for a total of more than 1,200 flights Military cargo.
Departure bases
The German Air Force contributed more than 80 military transport flights, most of which departed from the Wenzthrop Air Base, while about 25% of US military transport flights departed from the Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany. At least 11 Israeli military transport flights also appear to have taken off from Germany to Israel.
Departure bases for military equipment flights to Israel
While the British Air Force relied on its military transport flights, which exceeded 350 flights, on the Brize Norton Air Base in Oxfordshire (northwest of London), while its reconnaissance and refueling flights mainly relied on the British Akrotiri Air Base in Cyprus.
The United States relied mainly on the Souda Air Base on the Greek island of Crete for its flights, and also used the Paphos Air Base in Cyprus and the Sigonella Air Base in Italy, which houses a US Air Force and Navy station located east of Sicily, Italy.
In addition to these aircraft, Israel and Western countries use a huge and diverse fleet of drones that carry out various missions that do not leave the skies of Gaza and Lebanon, and cannot be monitored by open source navigation tracking tools.
Therefore, the numbers monitored in this report remain less than the actual reconnaissance flights that do not leave the skies of occupied Palestine and Lebanon, but they indicate the unprecedented size of these flights in history over a limited geographical area.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a war of genocide on Gaza, with full American support and in full view of the entire world, which has left 143,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that has killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
While the aggression on Lebanon resulted in a total of 2,546 dead and 11,862 wounded, including a large number of women and children, in addition to more than 1,340,000 displaced
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