[shouting] An Israeli airstrike
has just taken down three apartment buildings
in Gaza, killing 44 people. Riad Ishkontana is being
pulled from the rubble alive. [ambulance siren] But buried underneath are
his wife and five children. Only Ishkontana and one
daughter will survive. The strikes were the deadliest
of the 11-day Israeli air campaign in May, which
Israel said targeted Hamas, the group that governs Gaza. [sobbing] The Times has uncovered new
details about these attacks that show how the Israeli
military used advanced precision-guided bombs to hit
Ishkontana’s neighborhood more than 20 times that night. The Israeli military has
said that these strikes were carefully targeted. But our investigation
will show how Israel dropped some of the
heaviest bombs in its arsenal without warning on a
densely packed neighborhood and with limited
intelligence about what they were attacking. There is no
evidence that Israel struck or directly targeted
the apartment buildings. They initially said that
they had been aiming at a tunnel, which
collapsed and brought the buildings down. But weeks after the attacks,
and after repeated questioning from The Times,
the military said that what they had actually hit was an
underground command center, but that they hadn’t known
its size or exact location before they bombed. [bombs exploding] Israel says Hamas
intentionally builds military infrastructure
under residential buildings, which would be a violation
of the laws of war. The Israeli military hasn’t
provided evidence of what it says was the command center. Experts say that the type of
Israeli strikes we documented can easily lead to catastrophe
and could be a war crime. On the evening
of May 10, Hamas fired rockets toward
Israel in retaliation for Israeli police raids and
evictions in East Jerusalem. [explosions] Israel responded with
11 days of bombing. [explosions] The campaign killed
at least 230 people, according to the United Nations
and the Gaza Health Ministry. During that same
time frame, Hamas launched more than
4,300 rockets at Israel, killing 13 people. One of the areas most
ravaged by Israeli airstrikes was the neighborhood of Rimal,
in downtown Gaza City. Bisected by Al Wahda Street,
it’s home to malls, schools, restaurants,
government buildings and Gaza’s biggest
hospital, Dar Al Shifa. It’s a comparatively
upscale neighborhood in an impoverished territory
that’s been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since
Hamas took power in 2007. Because Rimal had been spared
in the last Israeli bombing campaign in 2014, many
Gazans considered it safe. On the night of May 15,
several families are sheltering in their
homes on the same block by Al Wahda Street. The extended Qawlaq
family lives here in two buildings that
were home to 31 people. 37 people live
in this building, among them Riad
Ishkontana, his wife and their five children. At around 1 a.m.,
Israeli airstrikes begin to pound Rimal. [explosions] [explosions] The Israeli Air Force said
that it launched around 100 guided bombs at Hamas tunnels
across Gaza that night. The Times used videos to map
where some of those bombs fell near the
apartment buildings. They show more than 20 strikes
across the neighborhood, including ones that damaged
government ministries and landed next to
a medical clinic. As explosions shake
their neighborhood, Ishkontana and his wife
put their children to bed and turn on the news. Then, an air strike. This drone footage published
by the Israeli Air Force on Twitter shows the moment
Ishkontana’s building is engulfed in an explosion. And we geolocated
this footage that shows smoke rising from
or just next to the building as other strikes hit nearby. As the walls of
his home collapse, Ishkontana runs to
his children’s room. Three buildings down
is the Qawlaq family. Shoukry Al Qawlaq’s mother
had told him to bring his wife and children
there that night because she thought
it would be safer. He’s just going upstairs to
rest when the bomb lands. [explosions] [explosion] An Israeli drone also
captures a strike near Al Qawlaq’s building. Zooming in on the video
and looking at it frame by frame shows what
looks like two bombs falling. And then at least
one detonation. The explosion envelops
the Qawlaq building. As the neighborhood
is bombarded, footage from a drone’s
heat-detecting camera reveals a line of new impact craters
down Al Wahda Street. [shouting] Israel said that the
intense bombing of the Rimal neighborhood
was part of a strategy to destroy the Hamas
tunnel system, what Israel calls the Metro. Hamas uses tunnels
to store weapons, smuggle in banned materiel,
and move fighters around. Doing this under a
civilian neighborhood likely breaches
international law. In a briefing three days
after the strikes, former Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of creating an
underground city of tunnels. “They built a whole
infrastructure.” He pointed to a map of Rimal,
marking what he said was the tunnel under
Al Wahda Street, with yellow dots indicating the
destroyed apartment buildings, which the map labeled
as “Not Attacked.” “We go to unprecedented
lengths to prevent civilian casualties.” This footage we
filmed at the scene, like the Israeli drone videos
we saw earlier, shows how Israel did
bomb straight down Al Wahda Street along the line
of the suspected tunnel. These satellite images
of the apartment buildings before and after
the strikes show how they were
totally destroyed, unlike the other
buildings on the street. [siren] The Times spent
more than a month investigating these attacks
to find out what went wrong. And we examined the Israeli
military’s explanations, which have evolved as
they have conducted their own inquiry. [shouting] For two weeks
after the bombings, Israel said that they
were targeting tunnels when the buildings collapsed. In June, after
repeated questioning, they got more specific. They told The Times
that they had hit an underground
command center and that they had known
it was there all along. But they also acknowledged
that they hadn’t known its size or exact location at
the time of the attack. A senior military official called the mass casualty incident
a freak event. Israel hasn’t provided evidence
of the command center, and Hamas has denied
its existence. If Israel’s intent was to
destroy underground military infrastructure in Rimal, the
laws of war obligated them to warn civilians that they
were at risk before bombing. But the Israeli official told
us that the military didn’t think a warning was necessary
because they’d conducted dozens of similar
bombings in Gaza without collapsing buildings. We watched Israeli
Air Force videos to see whether they provided
clues about the kind of bombs dropped on Al Wahda Street. Many showed troops loading jets
with Mark-80 series bombs and outfitting those bombs with American-made Joint
Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, guidance kits. These allow the bombs
to strike with precision, using GPS. We visited the Gaza police,
who showed The Times fragments of munitions
that they said were recovered from the
strikes on Al Wahda Street that night. Looking at the markings
on the tail fins, the first five
numbers indicate that it was manufactured by
Boeing in the United States. And these numbers are
associated with the JDAM kit. Gaza police said that
the fragments indicated the use of a GBU-31, a
2,000-pound Mark-84 equipped with a JDAM. It’s the heaviest bomb
that most militaries use on a regular basis. The Red Cross says weapons
like these shouldn’t be used in urban areas because
of the potentially dangerous consequences. We found that Israeli jets
likely dropped at least four of these bombs within feet
of the apartment buildings. Israeli military
officials told us that they programmed fuses to
allow these bombs to explode deep underground to increase
the impact on the tunnels and minimize damage above. Images of Ishkontana’s home
show little sign of damage to the surrounding buildings. And the roof, shown
here covered in debris, appears to have
collapsed intact. All this, experts said,
is consistent with a nearby strike from a
GBU-31 that penetrated deep underground before exploding. The Israeli military said
that all the bombs that night hit their intended targets. But even if that’s true,
experts say it doesn’t make the attacks legal. Saleh Higazi of
Amnesty International said that Israel
should have foreseen the disastrous effects
of such strikes on a dense civilian
neighborhood could have. Attacking anyway, without
warning and with heavy bombs, could be a war crime and should be part of an
ongoing investigation into Palestine by the
International Criminal Court, he said. The survivors of the
Al Wahda Street strikes have spent the night
beneath the rubble. Rescuers find
Shoukry al-Qawlaq alive after 11 hours. [shouting] And in the early morning, Ishkontana is also pulled
from beneath his home. [shouting] Hours later, his daughter
Susie, 7 years old, is brought out alive. Her mother, two brothers and
two sisters didn’t survive. In all, 22 people
in the building were killed, among them 15 members
of the Abul Ouf family. One of them was
Ayman Abul Ouf, a doctor and head
of internal medicine at Dar Al Shifa Hospital,
where he oversaw the coronavirus response. Down the road, another 22
members of the Qawlaq family were killed, ranging in age
from 6 months to 90 years. [child crying] Without a home, Ishkontana
and his daughter are now staying
with his uncle. Ishkontana had been working
as a waiter in a restaurant. But the coronavirus
pandemic cost him his job. Now, the airstrikes have left
only him to care for Susie. I’m Evan, one of the
producers of this video. Our team analyzed satellite
images, reviewed dozens of photos and videos,
consulted with weapons experts, and repeatedly questioned
the Israeli military to bring you this story. It was a complicated and
intense month-long team effort. But it was just one of many. You can see more of
our investigations by signing up for our
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