UPDATED 3:23 p.m.
GAZA (Reuters) -About 500 Palestinians were killed in a blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday that Palestinian health authorities said was caused by an Israeli air strike but that the Israeli military blamed on a failed rocket launch by a Palestinian militant group.
The blast was the bloodiest single incident in Gaza since Israel launched an unrelenting bombing campaign against the densely populated territory in retaliation for a deadly cross-border Hamas assault on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7.
It took place on the eve of a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden to Israel to show support for the country in its war with Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, and to hear how Israel plans to minimize civilian casualties.
Reuters could not independently verify who was responsible for the blast.
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.
However, the Israeli military denied responsibility for the blast at the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital in Gaza City, suggesting the hospital was hit by a failed rocket launch by the enclave’s Palestinian Islamic Jihad military group.
“An analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit,” a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said.
“Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza,” the spokesperson added.
Daoud Shehab, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, told Reuters: “This is a lie and fabrication, it is completely incorrect. The occupation is trying to cover for the horrifying crime and massacre they committed against civilians.”
In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters throwing rocks and chanting against President Mahmoud Abbas as popular anger boiled over after the blast.
Clashes with Palestinian security forces broke out in a number of other cities in the West Bank, which is ruled by Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, late on Tuesday, witnesses said.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Bassam Massoud and Nuha Sharaf in Gaza, Ari Rabinovitch, Dan Williams, Henriette Chacar, Dedi Hayun, Maayan Lubell, Emily Rose, James Mackenzie and John Davison in Jerusalem, Humeyra Pamuk in Tel Aviv, Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Hatem Maher, Ahmed Tolba and Omar Abdel-Razek in Cairo, Trevor Hunnicutt, Nandita Bose, Rami Ayyub and Katharine Jackson in Washington, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Writing by Peter Graff, Angus Macswan and Arshad Mohammed; editing by Mark Heinrich and Howard Goller)
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GAZA (Reuters) -An Israeli air strike killed at least 300 people at a Gaza City hospital on Tuesday, authorities in the Palestinian enclave said, and the United Nations said an Israeli strike also hit one of its schools being used as a shelter.
A Gaza civil defence chief said on Al-Jazeera television that more than 300 people were killed at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital. A Gaza Health Ministry source said at least 500 people were killed. Both departments are under the Hamas-run government.
Israel’s military said it was “still ironing out all the details” on the reports of the strikes on both the hospital and the school.
Health authorities in Gaza say at least 3,000 people have been killed in Israel’s intense 11-day bombardment since Hamas militants rampaged into Israeli towns on Oct 7, killing more than 1,300 soldiers and civilians.
News of the hospital blast came on the eve of U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel on Wednesday, and with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visiting on Tuesday.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “It’s not acceptable to hit a hospital”. Egypt said it denounced the attack “in the strongest terms”.
Video obtained by Reuters showed several ambulances arriving at another Gaza hospital 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.
Earlier on Tuesday, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said an Israeli air strike had killed at least six people after striking one of its schools that has been functioning as a shelter for displaced people.
The agency said dozens of people were injured by the strike, which it said caused “severe structural damage” to the school, where at least 4,000 people were sheltering.
“They had and still have nowhere else to go,” UNRWA quoted Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini as saying in a statement.
Hamas said the blast at the hospital mostly killed displaced people. A senior official for the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority, which operates in the West Bank but not in Gaza, described it as a massacre.
(Reporting By Moaz Abd-Alaziz, Nidal al Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta; Additional reporting by Emily Rose; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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