Okay, I decided to resolve this NO. While I don't think we know for sure that it wasn't an Israeli missile, the fact that the market was so low convinced me that people were interpreting the NO resolution as compatible with a consensus that it's likely not Israel. Since the interpretation is a reasonable one, and one that most traders took, I'd rather not impose my own interpretation instead of it.

Edit: If you haven't noticed the discussion, please take a look at the comment below. This ruling is not based on the facts, which I don't think are being disputed anymore, but rather on the interpretation of resolution criteria.

@traders Hi everyone. Sorry for being away and not resolving this yet. I will sum up my thoughts and open this for discussion before making a final decision:

• A lot of analyses were based on a video that supposedly showed a Palestinian rocket misfiring. Further analysis and videos show that it was in fact an Israeli interceptor that fell far from the hospital. This evidence therefore counts for nothing. As far as I understand, we basically have no valid video evidence of the rocket. There seems to be consensus around that point.

• The damage caused in the explosion appears to be consistent with a failed rocket, not an airstrike. There is a consensus around this. Forensic Architecture claims to disagree, but actually they don't. They just say that the rockets in another video that the IDF claimed is related could not have been the ones that hit. Which brings me back to my understanding that there is no valid video evidence of the projectile.

• The last major piece of evidence is circumstantial. Hamas was in control of Al-Ahli for a while after this happened, and has had the chance to release any information that backs their claim that Israel did it. They have not done so. However, it is possible that Hamas just didn't have the resources or intelligence to find this evidence.

The emerging picture is that it is highly likely that Israel was not responsible, but we cannot say so conclusively. I think there is consensus across sources about this statement. However, what the market was asking for is for consensus that Israel did not do it, which is not the same. In fact, the consensus appears to be consistent with the 25% option I outlined. So if that's it, I would probably resolve to that.

However, the market has been very low for a long time, clearly showing a consensus of informed users around that option. I fear that I misunderstood or miscommunicated somehow, so please let me know in the comments

@Shump What analysis shows that it was objectively an Israeli rocket? As far as I’m aware, every independent investigation by the AP, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal all conclude it was likely an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket (source: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/israel-hamas-war-everything-we-know-about-the-gaza-hospital-blast.html).

Which also aligns with the intelligence community assessments from the US, the UK, Canada, and France who iirc say that it was PIJ — or at the very least NOT Israel — with a high degree of confidence. All highly competent and respected communities and organizations. (Sources: 1- https://apnews.com/live/israel-hamas-war-live-updates

2- https://www.politico.eu/article/rishi-sunak-al-ahli-hospital-missile-gaza-israel-hamas-war/

3- https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7004384

4- https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-france-intelligence-7be0d59b9ceb58bbf2f03c5dc8222356)

@NADZOR I agree. What I'm saying is that all these sources are saying that it was likely a PIJ rocket. None of them have clear evidence that it was so. They're based on analysis of the impact. The question is, is that enough to say that there is a consensus that it was not Israel, or is that consensus just saying that it's likely not Israel

@Shump The Canadians are reporting a “high degree of confidence” in it being a PIJ rocket. All evidence so far (and it has been a while now) points towards PIJ, or at the very minimum not Israel. I’m not one to put it past the IDF to have done this; they absolutely would. But the facts on the ground and AFAIK every credible intelligence agency is saying it was not the Israelis. It may be likely a PIJ rocket, but the other options aren’t an Israeli strike; but a rocket from Hamas or some minor group with even worse capabilities. All the evidence points towards this, and AFAIK no tangible evidence points any other way

Resolution please @Shump. Or initiation of consensus-seeking process, if that's what you're going for.

https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/israeli-disinformation-al-ahli-hospital/

@Accuracy These people literally call the IDF the IOF. Ignore them.

Wikipedia finally comes around:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion

The consensus from various independent studies of videos, images, and eyewitness reports of the explosion, its aftermath, and the blast area suggests that an errant rocket launch from within Gaza is the most probable cause. While this is not a conclusive finding, it is currently considered the likeliest explanation based on the evidence gathered in investigations conducted by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal.[7] Human Rights Watch stated that the available evidence made an Israeli airstrike "highly unlikely".[6]

@chrisjbillington English Wikipedia did, Arabic Wikipedia is still very confident this was a massacre through Israeli airstrike on the hospital :/

Buying a big of yes due to creator uncertainty

@MarcusAbramovitch I think @Shump is pro-Israel and voted that the IDF is generally trustworthy. Probably not a good buy.

@nathanwei If you look at more of my comments you'll find a much more mixed picture. I voted YES only because I kind of hated the concept of that market and I thought that the result should be more % trustworthy but the way it's constructed biased it against the IDF.

Please don't turn this into a market about predicting my own beliefs. I sincerely will try my best to resolve this based on the overall media picture, not on my own priors.

@Shump Sure. Let me revise that and say "Shump does not have an unfair bias against Israel and can be trusted to not resolve this as yes just because he/she hates Israel".

New NYT article, "Revisiting the Gaza Hospital Explosion"

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/briefing/gaza-hospital-explosion.html

nytimes.com

lol

@Joshua No I actually think this is a rare NYT win. This article is a clear overview, doesn't repeat the bullshit from the previous NYT article that their investigation somehow destroyed the IDF's case, and ends with a good conclusion.

He's right that both sides deserve scrutiny, and both sides do lie. Although you're right that the lies are not exactly balanced.

This reinforces my belief that something is wrong specifically with the NYT editors, not the writers.Threy are the ones who seem to be pushing an agenda.

Edit: Don't read too much into this comment please. This is not a strong belief, there is a lot of time remaining until resolution, and I will do much more serious work to determine this then. This is written to improve transparency into my thought process and how I might go about resolving.

Update: If I was to resolve this today, this would probably resolve to 25%. This is in line with the description of the event on Wikipedia, which is generally a goal that I want to meet in the resolution.

Currently, the picture of the evidence I see is:

• Multiple Western Intelligence agencies concluded that it probably wasn't Israel

• Multiple major newspaper investigations also support the view of a Palestinian misfire

• OSINT analysts and the NYT imvestigation have cast doubt that the exploding rocket in the sky is Palestinian, so there appears to be no link between the two explosions.

• Some other pieces of evidence, like the audio clip released by the IDF speaker, have also been cast into doubt

• However, the ballistics seem to support a Palestinian misfire. The small explosion crater, the fact that Hamas said that the rocket "vaporized" and other evidence seems way more compatible with the Palestinian misfire interpretation than anything else

• However, a lot of uncertainty remains and it's hard to get much evidence as long as no investigator can actually access the strike.

@Shump multiple western intelligence agencies have done independent investigations and concluded it wasn't israel.

On the other hand, biased media outlets jumped on a claim by a motivated terrorist group and don't want to retract and admit they were duped and said terrorist organization doesn't allow for more investigation to be done.

Not sure how this picture isn't consensus among anyone who could possibly be trying to find the truth

For the record I agree with Marcus, despite buying yes.

I literally can't think of a single reason why Hamas wouldn't produce the weapon for international investigators and would bizarrely claim that it dissolved unless it wasn't an Israeli munition.

Don't bet too much on this update please. There's still plenty of time until resolution and I intend to do a much more serious evaluation in the end.

The main reason I'm saying 25% is not because I disagree on the evidence, but because it seems to me like a lot of people are still not convinced. And no, I don't think they are all so biased as to disregard them. Intelligence assessments are valuable, but because they rely on non-public information they can't be verified.

I literally can't think of a single reason why Hamas wouldn't produce the weapon for international investigators

I agree that it's probably because they're lying, but it can also be due to mistrust of international investigators. Hamas might not be letting anyone nearby because perhaps they're hiding some stuff in that hospital too. Remember that when Shireen Abu Akleh was killed, the Palestinian Authority didn't want to hand over the bullet either, even when they were right.

I can sympathize as the person running the wikipedia-based version of the market.

You said that being in line with wikipedia is generally in line with how you want your resolution to be here, could you elaborate on that? Do you think you have a higher or lower standard of evidence than wikipedia, or almost exactly the same?

@Joshua I generally think (English) Wikipedia does a great job of summarizing evidence, I guess a similar level of evidence? I just checked two controversial events that I think did reach a consensus, Shireen's death and the Kakhova dam explosion. The first is shown as conclusive, and the Kakhova Dam has this quote in the start:

Many experts have concluded that Russian forces likely blew up a segment of the dam to hinder the planned Ukrainian counter-offensive. Russian authorities have denied the accusation.

I'm not sure that counts as consensus but I it seems compatible enough with my view of the events.

Checking Wikipedia again, it does seem to indicate a consensus has been reached. So perhaps if I had to resolve today I would resolve NO? Anyways, I don't want to extend this discussion too much. I posted this because I wanted to give traders more transparency in how I'm thinking about resolving this, not because I have a strong opinion at the moment.

Just checked the Nordstream Sabotage wiki page and I'm updating against blindly trusting Wikipedia. Page still shows the perpetrator as totally unknown, despite there being significantly more evidence for Ukrainian involvement, which is also apparent from reading the full article. Maybe the lesson is to not trust the summary at the top of the article but to try to summarize it independently.

@Shump I would say there is much more evidence in this case than for Nordstream.

@SemioticRivalry Agreed. Nordstream is a clear 75% Ukraine to me, while this one is probably in between the 25% and NO options, which is why I'm getting pushback for what I said.

@Shump I have similar feelings after looking at the UAW strike page. A random user made very important changes w/no discussion; after I commented about it, another random user partially reverted them. There doesn't seem to be much actual discussion about it, things just happen and they wait for it to get fixed months or later

@Ernie The thing about Wikipedia is that its reliability scales with the attention that the page gets. I'm not sure the UAW strike page gets enough attention to become reliable.

@Shump I’m trying to find literally any explanation for why Hamas hasn’t produced fragments from a different Israeli artillery shell as from that site unless they’re trying to be honest.

It’s not like there’s a dearth of Israeli artillery shell fragments in the immediate vicinity of the hospital.

@DanPowell maybe because they know that a forensic investigation would go against them. If they are so honest why are they saying the missile dissolved which is physically impossible?

@SemioticRivalry My first thought is that it’s a translation error, like the casualty number that was mistranslated as a fatality number.

I can’t find the original statement and I wouldn’t be able to tell whether it was correctly translated.

But if you’re so confident that forensics investigations can tell exactly when and where a shell hit from pictures of the fragments, then Israel should be encouraging the collection of fragments from the shells that are alleged to have targeted the evacuation routes during the peak of the evacuation.

@DanPowell it was quoted extensively in the New York times, I seriously doubt they mistranslated it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-hospital-evidence.html

@DanPowell Confusion between "dissolved" and "melted"?