1:20 a.m. ET, October 18, 2023
An explosion at a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds. Here’s what we know
By CNN’s Jessie Yeung, Tara John and Zahid Mahmood Wounded Palestinians lie in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City after returning from a hospital explosion on Tuesday. Abed Khaled/AP Hundreds of people have died after a hospital in Gaza was bombed on Tuesday.
Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, described the situation after the explosion as “unprecedented and indescribable.”
“Rescue workers are still removing body parts,” Al-Qudra said in a statement on Wednesday local time, noting that “most of the victims are children and women.”
The number of victims and their injuries “exceeds the capacity of medical teams and ambulances,” he added.
“Doctors performed operations on the floor and in the corridors, some without anesthesia, and a large number of injured people are still awaiting operations and medical teams are trying to save their lives in the intensive care unit.”
Death toll: The hospital, located in the center of Gaza City, housed thousands of displaced people who were forcibly evacuated, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement. Many victims were still lying under the rubble, it said.
Hamas, which controls the enclave, said the bombing killed more than 500 people. The Palestinian Health Ministry had previously said preliminary estimates suggested that between 200 and 300 people were killed in the attack.
The number of casualties in Gaza in the last ten days now exceeds the number killed during the 51-day Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014.
Uncertain origin: Palestinian officials blame ongoing Israeli airstrikes for the deadly incident. But Israeli forces “categorically” denied any involvement in the attack on the hospital, instead blaming it on a “failed rocket launch” by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, a rival Islamist militant group in Gaza. The US is analyzing information about the explosion provided by Israel to better understand what happened.
Stand out: Several Arab countries strongly condemned Israel after the blast, while protests broke out across the Middle East and North Africa.
Jordan has canceled a summit scheduled for Wednesday between US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. Instead, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he would return to Ramallah for an urgent meeting of the Palestinian leadership.