Comment by plaidfuji

This reminds me of the Al-Ahli hospital incident in Gaza, when a mysterious explosion at a hospital was immediately blamed on an Iraeli strike - first by Hamas, then by the international press. A precise death toll was immediately available: 500 killed. Israel urged caution as they investigated, but were ignored.

Eventually, it was established that 1) the casualty number had been a fabrication, 2) the explosion was in the parking lot, 3) it was NOT caused by an Israeli strike, but by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that had fell short.

Soon the press was forced to issue corrections - New York Times [1] , Le Monde [2], BBC [3]...

This incident looks VERY similar. Which is not surprising, since Hamas was trained in information warfare by the IRGC. Note that Al Jazeera (the media arm of Qatar, who funds Hamas and hosts their leaders in Doha) is enthusiastically amplifying this story with no apparent effort to cross-examine Iran's official source.

I predict that this story will turn out to be fabricated as well.

UPDATE: preliminary reports from the OSINT community seem to indicate that the story was indeed a fabrication... https://x.com/tarikh_eran/status/2027784301840846939

[1] https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/the-new-york-times-e...

[2] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/10/24/a-no...

[3] https://deadline.com/2023/11/bbcs-international-editor-grill...