Are hospitals collateral damage? Assessing geospatial proximity of 2000 lb bomb detonations to hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip from October 7 to November 17, 2023

After attacks in Israel led by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, Israel launched a major military campaign in the Gaza Strip that has featured an unprecedented scale of destruction. This has included the use of highly destructive weapons in a densely populated area. Mark-84 bombs (M-84s) are 2000 lb air-dropped explosive munitions with the capacity to damage infrastructure and kill or cause severe injury hundreds of meters away. This study examines the proximity of M-84 bomb detonations to hospital infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. We combined geospatial data on hospital locations across the Gaza Strip with maps of the locations of M-84 bomb craters between October 7 and November 17, 2023, published by CNN and New York Times. We then measured and summarized the proximity of the bomb craters to hospitals across the territory. We identified 592 M-84 bomb craters. Of the 36 hospitals across the Gaza Strip, 25% (n = 9) had at least one bomb crater within the lethal range (360 m) and 83.3% (n = 30) within the infrastructure damage and injury range (800 m) of their facilities. The shortest distance of a bomb crater from a hospital was 14.7 m. Two hospitals had as many as 23 and 21 bomb craters within 800 m of their facilities and one hospital had seven bomb craters within 360 m. Thirty-eight M-84 bombs were detonated within 800 m of hospitals in the Israeli military defined evacuation zone. Given the known blast effect of these M-84 bombs, the impact from the bomb detonations near hospitals likely killed and injured people in and around the hospital area, which could include civilians and hospital staff, and likely damaged hospital infrastructure. The results of this study suggest indiscriminate bombing in dangerous proximities to hospital infrastructure, which is afforded special protection under international humanitarian law (IHL).