Key Points
- Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for the huge blast.
- Israel has denied responsibility, blaming a failed rocket launch by a Palestinian militant group.
- The hospital blast unleashed new fury on streets across the Middle East.
A huge explosion at a Gaza hospital has killed hundreds of Palestinians, wrecking a diplomatic mission by US President Joe Biden, who arrived in Israel on Wednesday but was snubbed by Arab leaders who called off an emergency summit.
Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for the huge blast and fireball that engulfed the al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Israel denied responsibility and said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.
Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: "I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you."
"But there's a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot, we’ve got to overcome a lot of things," Biden added.
"The world is looking. Israel has a value set like the United States does, and other democracies, and they are looking to see what we are going to do."
Biden's trip to the Middle East was supposed to calm the region, even as he demonstrated US support for its ally Israel, which has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement whose fighters killed 1300 Israelis in a rampage on 7 October.
But after the hospital blast, Jordan cancelled the crucial second half of Biden's itinerary: a planned summit in Amman with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority to shore up aid to Gaza and avert wider war.
The scenes of destruction from the hospital were horrific even by the standards of the past 12 days, which have confronted the world with relentless images, first of Israelis slaughtered in their homes and then of Palestinian families buried under rubble from Israel's retaliatory strikes.
Rescue workers scoured blood-stained debris for survivors. A Gaza civil defence chief gave a death toll of 300, while health ministry sources put it at 500. Palestinian ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said rescuers were still pulling bodies from the rubble.
Injured Palestinian civilians were taken to the Al-Shifa Hospital after the airstrike on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. Source: Getty / Anadolu Agency
The Israeli military also published what it said was an audio recording of "communication between terrorists talking about rockets misfiring".
But Palestinians were convinced the explosion was an Israeli attack, which they said came with no warning on a hospital that was being used as a shelter by thousands of Gazans already made homeless by Israeli bombing.
Footage obtained by Reuters from inside the hospital in the aftermath showed around two dozen destroyed vehicles, many turned into mangled skeletons. Some vehicles nearby in the yard still had mattresses of displaced people on top of them.
The blast unleashed new fury on streets across the Middle East, even as Biden was desperately trying to calm emotions and prevent the conflict from sweeping across borders.
Source: SBS News
Protests also erupted at Israel's embassies in Turkey and Jordan and near the US embassy in Lebanon, where security forces fired tear gas toward demonstrators.
The US State Department issued a new warning to Americans not to travel to Lebanon, where border clashes between the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israel over the past week have been the deadliest since the last all-out war in 2006.
Countries and international officials around the world denounced the blast, often with statements carefully worded to avoid saying who was to blame.While briefing reporters, Hagari cast doubt on the Palestinian death count in the hospital strike and claimed there was no direct hit on the facility.
He said military drone footage showed "a kind of hit in the parking lot".
Biden has strongly backed Israel following the 7 October attacks. But he is under intense pressure to win a clear Israeli commitment to alleviate the plight of civilians in the Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million Palestinians are under total siege, with no access to food, fuel, water or medical supplies.
Palestinians evacuate the area following an Israeli airstrike on the Sousi mosque in Gaza City on 9 October. Source: Getty / Mahmud Hams/AFP
Thousands killed since Israel-Hamas conflict began
Israel hasthat controls Gaza after Hamas gunmen killed 1,300 people, mainly civilians,- the deadliest single day in Israel's 75-year history.
Health authorities in Gaza say at least 3,000 people have been killed in Israel's 11-day bombardment.
Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group, which has gained power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006. Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel's right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the UK and the US. New Zealand and Paraguay list only its military wing as a terrorist group. In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted against a resolution condemning Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organisation.
Israel has , halting food, fuel and medical supplies, which are rapidly running out.
Displaced people fleeing the Israeli bombardment have flocked to hospitals, seeking refuge around them in hopes they will be safer.
, 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 Organization said the attack on the hospital was "unprecedented in its scale".
It said earlier on Tuesday there had been 115 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza and the majority of its hospitals were not functioning.
Countries including Canada, Egypt, Türkiye, 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.
