According to audio, the Israeli army killed two Gaza medical
professionals by firing more than 100 shots. A forensic audio analysis of
mobile phone footage that was commissioned by WRITEVERSETIP Verify has revealed
that Israeli troops fired more than 100 times during an attack in Gaza that
resulted in the deaths of 15 emergency workers. Some of the shots came from as
close as 12 meters (39 feet) away. A 19-minute video that was verified by WRITEVERSETIP Verify and showed the incident and the moments leading up to it near Rafah on
March 23 was examined by two audio experts. According to the Palestinian Red
Crescent, the workers were "targeted from a very close range"
according to the findings. On 5 April an Israeli army official said aerial
footage showed troops opening fire "from afar".
The Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) declined to comment on the analysis directly when approached by WRITEVERSETIP
Verify.
Without providing any
evidence, a spokesperson for the organization reiterated claims that six of the
deceased were associated with Hamas and stated that the organization was
conducting an investigation into the incident. The Palestinian Red Crescent and
a ninth paramedic who survived and was held by the IDF for 15 hours both
refuted the claim. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, the entire video
was retrieved from the phone of a medical professional who was killed by the
IDF and buried in a shallow grave. Video filmed by medic Rifaat Radwan who was
killed in the incident showed the convoy driving at night, using headlights and
flashing emergency lights. At least one
medic can be seen wearing a high-vis jacket.
Faced with this, the
Israeli army changed its account, admitting that its initial statement that the
convoy approached "suspiciously" with its lights off was inaccurate.
Experts told WRITEVERSETIP
Verify they used sound waveforms and spectrograms to measure the distance of
the gunfire from the microphone of the mobile.
As the video progressed, shorter time gaps indicated that the distance
between the microphone and the gunfire decreased. A graphic from the WRITEVERSETIP
that shows how the sound of the bullets was measured. They came to the
conclusion that the initial shots were fired between 40 and 43 meters away. But
towards the end of the video, gunfire came from around 12m away.
At a briefing on 5
April, an IDF official told reporters that surveillance showed the troops were
at some distance when they opened fire, adding: "It's not from close. They fired from a distance." One
military expert told WRITEVERSETIP Verify that any engagements under 50m to
100m would be considered as being within close range.
An expert in audio
forensics at Montana State University, Robert Maher, stated that one firearm is
seen firing about 43 meters away from the mobile phone at the beginning of the
footage. Mr. Maher and another expert, Steven Beck, independently agreed that
shots are fired as close as 12 meters away in the last few seconds of the
audio. Mr Beck, a former FBI consultant who now runs Beck Audio Forensics,
said: "The shooter(s) at these times is much closer, with distances of 12m
to 18m. A strange pop sound may be the
result of a bullet hitting a tire. "The shockwaves indicate that the
bullets are passing close to the recorder microphone, indicating that they are
being shot at," he continued. Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British Army
officer with over 20 years experience in conducting investigations in conflicts
zones, said that at 50m the Israeli troops would have "definitively been
able to identify the convoy as humanitarian" and would have been able to
"determine that the personnel were unarmed and not posing a threat".
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Voices can also be
heard towards the end of the recording, shouting in Hebrew: "Get up,"
and: "You (plural) go back".
Over the period of
more than five minutes, at times, multiple firearms were in use simultaneously,
the audio experts determined.
"The sounds are
frequently overlapping in such a way that it is clear that multiple firearms
are in use at the same time," Mr. Maher stated. Mr. Maher stated that it
is difficult to identify individual shots due to the overlap of gunshots. But
both experts determined independently that there were more than 100 shots.
Our audio analysts
could not comment on which weapons were being used but Mr Beck said there are
"several bursts of fully automatic gunfire".
How experts analysed
the audio
A bullet travelling
at supersonic speed first creates a sonic boom - often called a
"crack". The sound of the
bullet being fired is what creates a second sound, often called a
"pop".
At close distances,
the two sounds are almost indiscernible to the human ear.
But by looking
closely at the waveform of the audio, the two sounds can be detected and the
distance between them measured.
What Mr Maher
describes as "crack-pop sequences" are visible in these waveforms.
According to Mr.
Maher, there is a longer gap between the two sounds the further away the
firearm is from the microphone. Mr Maher said: "The first few audible
gunshots have a crack-pop timing of about 72ms.
Assuming a bullet speed of 800 m/s and speed of sound 343 m/s, that time
gap implies the firearm was about 43 meters away. If the bullet speed were actually faster,
that would move the firearm estimate closer to the microphone."
There are limitations
to their estimates. For example,
analysts told us they cannot be certain of the type of firearm used or of the
miss distance, which is how far off the shot is from the intended target. They also must make an assumption about the
average speed of the bullet.
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