Palestinian health officials say more than 500 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike at a hospital in Gaza Tuesday —as a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces claims the blast was caused by a failed Hamas rocket.
The Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was struck by a bomb amid Israel’s airstrikes targeting Hamas terrorists, with Gaza’s civil defense chief and Health Ministry estimating the casualties between 300 to more than 500 people.
Israeli officials, however, refuted the report from Hamas, claiming the hospital was not hit by an IDF airstrike, but was instead the victim of a faulty rocket launched by the terrorist group.
“An enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed in the vicinity of the hospital, when it was hit,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a statement.
“According to intelligence information, from several sources we have, the GAP organization is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital.”
As the governments blame one another for one of the deadliest single incidents of violence since war broke out on Oct. 7, harrowing images from the hospital show many women and children wounded by the blast.
Other pictures show emergency workers carrying the ashen survivors, many of them children, as they work to clear the area where the hospital once stood.
Many of the bodies recovered from the hospital were transported to the nearby Al Shifa Hospital as officials work to try and identify the dead.
The bombing came hours before President Biden departed the US for Israel, where he will visit Tel Aviv Wednesday to discuss the importance of America and its allies to support Israel in its fight against Hamas.
The 80-year-old commander in chief’s trip was supposed to include a stop in Amman, Jordan, but the nation’s government canceled the Wednesday meeting between Biden, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to Reuters.
Abbas said he would not attend after the deadly Gaza City hospital attack.
“After consulting with King Abdullah II of Jordan and in light of the days of mourning announced by President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, President Biden will postpone his travel to Jordan and the planned meeting with these two leaders and President Sisi of Egypt,” the White House said in a statement.
“The president sent his deepest condolences for the innocent lives lost in the hospital explosion in Gaza and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded. He looks forward to consulting in person with these leaders soon, and agreed to remain regularly and directly engaged with each of them over the coming days.”
Although Israel’s military has warned Gaza’s hospitals to evacuate the land, medics have refused to budge, stating that it was impossible to mobilize many of the patients as doctors reaffirmed their choice to stay and treat the wounded.
The hospital’s destruction comes as the United Nations also blamed an Israeli airstrike for hitting one of the schools being used to shelter civilians.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said at least six people were killed in the strike, with dozens more injured.
The UN noted that the bombing also caused “severe structural damage” to the school building, which was housing at least 4,000 civilians.
“They had and still have nowhere else to go,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.
The destruction comes as Israel doubles down on its retaliatory strikes against Hamas, which governs Gaza, following the terrorist group’s surprise invasion on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,300 people in Israel.
Now 11 days into Israel’s counterattack, health officials say at least 3,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Israeli officials have vowed to destroy Hamas in an expected ground invasion of Gaza, with IDF soldiers also looking to rescue the more than 150 taken hostage by Hamas.
With Post wires