Hamas and Israel traded blame over an explosion at a Gaza City hospital on Tuesday night that health authorities said killed at least 300 people.
Eyewitnesses described horrific scenes as terrified residents fled the hospital, with a huge fire burning in the compound. Hundreds of people were feared trapped under the rubble.
The Gaza authorities immediately said Israel was responsible for the attack, but in a statement the Israeli army said intelligence analysis had determined conclusively that the blast had been caused by an Islamic Jihad projectile aimed at Israel that fell short, hitting the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital. Islamic Jihad denied the Israeli claim.
Thousands of Gaza residents had reportedly fled to the hospital over the last few days, believing they would be relatively safe there from incessant Israeli air strikes, launched in the wake of the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7th that killed 1,400 people in Israel, most of them civilians – the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history.
Health authorities in Gaza say that prior to the hospital strike at least 3,000 people in the strip had been killed in the Israeli bombardment, while some 600,000 people have fled to the south of the coastal enclave after Israeli military warnings.
A Gaza civil defence chief said on Al-Jazeera television that more than 300 people had been killed in the hospital strike, while a Gaza health ministry source said the death toll was least 500. Both departments are under the government of Hamas, the militant organisation that rules the Gaza Strip.
Responding to the development, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said: “It’s not acceptable to hit a hospital.” Egypt said it denounced the attack “in the strongest terms”. The World Health Organisation said the strike was “unprecedented in scale”.
Earlier, the United Nations said a school in central Gaza where 4,000 people were sheltering was also hit, killing at least six people.
The hospital blast cast a shadow over US president Joe Biden’s planned visit to Israel on Wednesday to show solidarity with the Israeli government in the wake of the Hamas attack.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning in the West Bank and reportedly cancelled his participation in a subsequently cancelled meeting with Mr Biden in Jordan on Wednesday which was also to be attended by Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
US president Joe Biden has said he was “outraged and deeply saddened” at the explosion and the loss of life at the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza.
In a statement on Tuesday night he said he had directed his intelligence staff to find out how it had happened.
The deaths of hundreds of people at the hospital have came just hours before the president was scheduled to leave Washington to visit Israel and Jordan.
The Jordanian leg of the trip was subsequently cancelled.
In his statement Mr Biden described what had taken place at the hospital as an “explosion”.
Palestinian security forces in Ramallah fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters throwing rocks and chanting against Mr Abbas on Tuesday, as popular anger boiled over after the hospital strike.
Mr Biden arrives in Israel after ordering two US aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean and the airlift to Israel of smart bombs and other weaponry. The US president is expected to reiterate his warning against state and non-state actors joining Hamas in the fighting, with attention focused on the Iranian-backed Hizbullah in south Lebanon.
Mr Biden will also discuss efforts to secure the release of the hostages being held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza. Israel has informed 199 families that their loved ones are in captivity but Hamas claims the real number is closer to 250.
Hamas demands the release of 6,000 security prisoners held in Israel in return for the hostages and NBC quoted a Hamas spokesman as saying all civilian hostages would be freed immediately if Israel stopped its bombing campaign.
Hamas announced on Tuesday that Ayman Nofal, the head of its military wing’s central Gaza brigade, had been killed in an Israeli air strike in the Bureij refugee camp.
Israel said 14 family members of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh had been killed in another air strike on the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City, on Tuesday. Mr Haniyeh’s brother and nephew were among those reported killed in the strike. The leader himself is based in Qatar.
During a tour of the south on Tuesday, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said: “To the members of Hamas, there are two options: either die in your positions or surrender unconditionally, there is no third option. We will eradicate the Hamas organisation and dismantle all of its capabilities.”
Fighting on Israel’s northern border escalated on Tuesday. Israel said it had killed five Hizbullah fighters – four of whom had tried to infiltrate across the border. – Additional reporting Reuters
