President Joe Biden is “outraged” by the attack on a Gaza hospital that killed at least 500 people and has vowed to find out who was behind it.
The president, who is on his way to Tel Aviv in midair, left Washington DC as news of the attack on al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City spread.
The strike has thrown his trip into chaos: a planned meeting in the Jordanian capital Amman with the King of Jordan and the presidents of Egypt and Palestine was canceled.
Hamas says Israel was behind hospital airstrike; Israel says they are Palestinian militants allied with Islamic Jihad.
Jonathan Conricus, an IDF spokesman, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that they have conclusive evidence that Israel was not behind the attack – but that evidence has not yet been made public. He shared a video of what he said could be the rocket attack.
“I am outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza and the terrible loss of life that resulted,” Biden said in a White House statement.
“Immediately after hearing this news, I spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and instructed my national security team to continue gathering information about exactly what happened.”
“The United States is unequivocally committed to protecting civilian life during conflict, and we mourn the patients, medical personnel and other innocents killed or injured in this tragedy.”
Images from the attack on a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday. The Palestinian health authority, controlled by the terror group Hamas, said it was an Israeli attack, while the Israel Defense Forces said it was a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian military group Islamic Jihad
An injured man is carried out of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza
Rescue workers are working on site at Al-Ahli Hospital
Joe Biden is seen leaving Washington DC for Israel on Tuesday evening
This may be live footage of the crashed rocket that hit the hospital in Gaza. We said that according to our intelligence analysis, the explosion was caused by a misfired Islamic Jihad missile. pic.twitter.com/o8uvNQd6eG
— Jonathan Conricus (@jconricus) October 17, 2023
Biden’s meeting with King Abdullah, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in the Jordanian capital, was canceled.
It was also thanks to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on state television that the war between Israel and Hamas was “bringing the region to the brink.”
He said Jordan would host the summit only after everyone agreed that its goal was to “stop the war, respect the humanity of Palestinians and provide the assistance they deserve.”
Biden will now only visit Israel, a White House official said.
The explosion left horrific scenes.
Video from the hospital, according to the Associated Press, showed fire engulfing the building and the hospital grounds littered with torn bodies, including many young children. The grass around them was strewn with blankets, school backpacks and other belongings.
The carnage came as the U.S. tried to persuade Israel to allow aid to be delivered to desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals in the tiny Gaza Strip, which has been under complete siege since Hamas’ deadly rampage in southern Israel last week.
Hospitals were on the brink of blackout as hundreds of thousands of increasingly desperate people sought bread and water.
Bodies of victims of the Al-Ahli hospital strike are seen lined up in a courtyard on Tuesday
According to the Palestinian authorities, 500 people were killed in the attack on Al-Ahli Hospital on Tuesday (pictured).
Wounded people are pictured at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday
The bodies of Palestinians killed in an explosion at al-Ahli hospital are gathered in the front yard of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City
Injured people are being treated in the tent set up in the courtyard of Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital
Wounded Palestinians are pictured at Al-Shifa Hospital on Tuesday
Hamas called Tuesday’s hospital explosion a “terrible massacre” and said it was caused by an Israeli attack.
The Israeli military blamed Islamic Jihad, a smaller, more radical Palestinian militant group that often cooperates with Hamas in their joint fight against Israel.
The military said Islamic Jihad militants fired a volley of rockets near the hospital at the time and that “intelligence from multiple sources” suggested they were “responsible for the failed rocket launch that hit the hospital.”
Speaking on CNN, Conricus called claims that Israel was behind the attack “fake news.”
In a briefing with reporters, the army’s chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the army had determined that there were no air, ground or sea attacks in the area at the time of the explosion, shortly before 7 p.m.
He said radars detected outgoing rocket fire at the same moment and intercepted communications between militant groups suggested Islamic Jihad fired the rockets.
Hagari also shared aerial footage collected by a military drone that he said showed an explosion inconsistent with Israeli weapons, with the explosion occurring in the parking lot in front of the building.
The Army planned to release its evidence, including surveillance footage and records of intercepted communications, soon.
Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system fires in Ashkelon, Israel, on Tuesday to intercept a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip
Wounded Palestinians lie at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, central Gaza Strip, after arriving from al-Ahli hospital
Wounded Palestinians lie on the floor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, central Gaza Strip, after arriving from al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday
Hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City in recent days, hoping they would be spared from the bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip had.
Ambulances and private cars brought about 350 victims of the explosion in al-Ahli to Gaza City’s main hospital, al-Shifa, which was already overflowing with wounded from other attacks, its director Mohammed Abu Selmia said.
The wounded were laid on bloody floors, screaming in pain.
“We squeeze five beds into one tiny room. “We need equipment, we need medicine, we need beds, we need anesthesia, we need everything,” Abu Selmia said, warning that fuel supplies for the hospital’s generators would run out on Wednesday.
“I think the medical sector in Gaza will collapse within a few hours.”
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 2,778 people were killed and 9,700 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza before the deaths at Al-Alhi Hospital.
Nearly two-thirds of those killed were children, a ministry official said.
According to health authorities, another 1,200 people are believed to be buried alive or dead under the rubble across the Gaza Strip.
The Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and captured about 200 in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas militants in Gaza have fired rockets every day since then, targeting cities across Israel.
Hundreds of Palestinians flooded the streets of major West Bank cities, including Ramallah, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, where protesters threw stones at Palestinian security forces who fired back with stun grenades. Others threw stones at Israeli checkpoints where soldiers killed a Palestinian, West Bank authorities said. Hundreds of people joined the protests that broke out in Beirut and Amman, where angry crowds gathered outside the Israeli embassy.
Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority exercises limited autonomy in parts of the occupied West Bank, had already canceled his participation in the summit in protest at the hospital explosion.
Biden’s visit is partly aimed at preventing the war from sparking a larger regional conflict.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has canceled his meeting with Joe Biden. Biden’s summit with Arab leaders, which was scheduled to take place in Amman, Jordan on Wednesday, has now been canceled entirely
European governments have warned nations to take all necessary measures to avert war. Pictured: Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
Violence broke out on Tuesday along Israel’s border with Lebanon, where Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters operate and where Israel has evacuated surrounding towns.
With tens of thousands of troops stationed along the border, Israel was expected to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, but its plans remained uncertain.
“We are preparing for the next phases of the war,” said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht.
“We haven’t said what they will be.” Everyone is talking about a ground offensive. It could be something else.’
Air strikes throughout Tuesday killed dozens of civilians and at least one senior Hamas figure in the southern half of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military urged fleeing Palestinians to head.
An Associated Press reporter saw about 50 bodies being taken to Nasser Hospital following strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis.
An airstrike in Deir al Balah reduced a house to rubble, killing a man and 11 women and children inside and in a neighboring house, some of whom had been evacuated from Gaza City. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike.
Shelling from Israeli tanks hit a U.N. school in central Gaza where 4,000 Palestinians had sought refuge, killing six people and wounding dozens, the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency said.
At least 24 UN facilities have been attacked in the past week, killing at least 14 of the organization’s staff.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers.
A spate of attacks occurred in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, leveling an entire city block and causing dozens of deaths among the families living there, residents said. Among those killed was one of Hamas’ top military commanders, Ayman Nofal, the group’s military wing said – the most prominent known militant killed in the war so far.
Nofal, former intelligence chief of Hamas’ armed wing, was responsible for Hamas’ militant activities in the central Gaza Strip, including coordinating activities with other militant groups.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to blame Hamas for Israel’s retaliatory attacks and rising civilian casualties in Gaza.
“Not only does it target and murder civilians with unprecedented ferocity, it also hides behind civilians,” he said.
In Gaza City, Israeli airstrikes also hit the home of Hamas’ top political official, Ismail Haniyeh, killing at least 14 people.
Haniyeh is based in Doha, Qatar, but his family lives in Gaza City.
The Hamas media office did not immediately identify the dead.
With Israel banning the import of most water, fuel and food into the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s brutal attack last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reached an agreement with Netanyahu to create a mechanism to provide aid to the 2nd Gaza Strip .3 million people in the area.
U.S. officials said the gain may seem modest but stressed it was a significant step forward.
There was still no agreement late on Tuesday.
A senior Israeli official said his country was demanding guarantees that Hamas militants would not seize aid supplies.
Tzahi Hanegbi, head of Israel’s National Security Council, suggested that the delivery of aid was also dependent on the return of hostages held by Hamas.
More than a million Palestinians have fled their homes – about half of Gaza’s population – and 60% are now in the roughly 13-kilometer area south of the evacuation zone, the United Nations said.
At the Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid were waiting to enter the country.
The World Food Program said more than 300 tons of food was waiting to be transported to Gaza.