Gaza authorities said an air strike last night killed about 500 people at a hospital in the Palestinian enclave, but Israel said a Palestinian rocket had caused the blast. The death toll was by far the highest of any single incident in Gaza during the current violence, triggering protests in the occupied West Bank, Istanbul and Amman. The Palestinian Authority’s health minister, Mai Alkaila, accused Israel of ‘a massacre’ at Al Ahli Al Arabi Hospital.
The strike killed hundreds of people and occurred during Israel’s intense 11-day bombing campaign in Gaza. Earlier a Gaza civil defence chief said 300 people were killed and a health ministry official said 500 were killed. Hamas said the blast mostly killed displaced people. A spokesperson for the Israeli military said analysis by its operational system showed ‘an enemy rocket barrage’ aimed at Israel was passing the hospital at the time of the strike and blamed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ‘bar- baric terrorists’ in Gaza had attacked the Gaza hospital, not Israel’s military. Islamic Jihad denied that any of its rockets were involved in the hospital blast, saying it did not have any activity in or around Gaza City at that time. Islamic Jihad took part in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 and, like Hamas, has fired numerous salvoes of rockets into Israel.
News of the hospital strike and high death toll prompted condemnation from many countries on the eve of US President Joseph Biden’s visit to Israel. Russia and the UAE demanded a UN Security Council meeting and clashes erupted in the West Bank.
Earlier in the day the UN said an Israeli strike had hit one of its schools where at least 4,000 people were sheltering. The agency said six people were killed and dozens injured by the strike. Israel’s military said it was looking into that report. Health authorities in Gaza said prior to the incident at least 3,000 people had been killed in Israel’s 11 days of bombing.
Displaced people fleeing the Israeli bombardment have flocked to hospitals, seeking refuge around them in hopes they will be safer. Last week Israel ordered all people living in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, which is only 45km long and home to 2.3 million people, to leave their homes and go south. However, the air strikes have pounded targets throughout the enclave and despite expectations of an Israeli ground offensive, some displaced people have started returning north.
The World Health Organisation said the attack on the hospital was ‘unprecedent- ed in its scale’. It said earlier there had been 115 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza and the majority of its hospitals were not functioning. Israel has cut off all power, water, food, fuel and medi- cine supplies into Gaza since the Hamas attack, intensifying an existing blockade of the enclave. The WHO said it urgent- ly needed access to Gaza to deliver aid and medical supplies, warning of a long-term humanitarian crisis.
Egyptian aid trucks were waiting at the border into Gaza but there was no agreement to allow them in. Countries including Canada, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Qatar condemned the strike on the hospital. In the West Bank, where the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority operates, Palestinian protesters clashed with Palestinian security forces, who fired tear gas to disperse them. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled a meeting with Biden. Video obtained by Reuters showed several ambulances arriving at another Gaza hos- pital carrying people injured at Al Ahli Al Arabi hospital. One man was staggering, bleeding heavily from the head. A boy was being carried on a stretcher.
Anglican-run Al-Ahli al-Arabi was damaged by Israeli rocket fire on Sunday, according to a statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who appealed for health facilities to be protected. Regardless of who is found responsible for the explosion, which Hamas said had killed patients and others left homeless by Israeli bombardment, it will complicate efforts to contain the crisis. In one sign of this, Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, cancelled a summit his country was to host in Amman with Biden and the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders.
In another, Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah who were throwing rocks as popular anger boiled. The blast drew condemnation across the Arab world, and protests were staged at Israel’s embassies in Turkey and Jordan and near the US embassy in Lebanon, where security forces fired tear gas toward demonstrators.
Television footage showed protests in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taz, as well as in the Moroccan capital Rabat and Iraq’s capital, Baghdad. Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbollah group denounced what it said was Israel’s deadly attack on the hospital in Gaza, and called for ‘a day of unprecedented anger’ against Israel and Biden’s visit.
There were competing claims and denials from Israeli and Palestinian officials over who was responsible. The health minister in the Hamas-run government of Gaza, Mai Alkaila, accused Israel of a massacre. A Gaza civil defence chief said 300 people were killed and a health ministry official said 500 were killed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu minced no words in blaming Palestinian groups for the explosion. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called it “a horrific crime, genocide” and said countries backing Israel also bore responsibility.
A shocked Bahrain-based British expatriate, who has visited the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza City, has expressed outrage at last night’s tragedy. “This is an outrageous atrocity. The hospital was already struggling to help mainly injured women and children amidst unimaginably difficult circumstances,” he said. “ The staff have been working tirelessly to support those from any background. A hospital should be considered a safe haven. “Knowing several people who support this community facility makes this shocking act even harder to take. My thoughts and prayers go to all affected, the businessman who has visited the hospital and knows other families who volunteer their services at the facility said. The shocked resident who asked not to be named added: “What’s more worrying is that this escalation comes as the world calls for restraint.”
&uuid=(email))