KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A massive explosion rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with injured people and other Palestinians seeking shelter on Tuesday, killing hundreds of people, the Hamas-run health ministry said. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military said the hospital was hit by a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants.
According to the Ministry of Health, at least 500 people were killed. 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. Blankets, school backpacks and other belongings lay on the grass around them.
The carnage came as the US 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. It also came a day before President Joe Biden was set to visit the region to show support for Israel and try to prevent the war from expanding.
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.
Hamas called Tuesday’s hospital strike “a terrible massacre” and said it was caused by an Israeli attack.
However, the Israeli military said Palestinian militants fired rocket fire near the hospital at the time. “Information we have from multiple sources suggests that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed missile launch,” it said.
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.
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
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.
In protest over the alleged airstrike, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas canceled his participation in a meeting with Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the Egyptian president scheduled for Wednesday in Amman, Jordan, to discuss the war. Abbas’s Palestinian Authority administers parts of the West Bank.
Palestinians flee Israeli bombardment of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Palestinians search for survivors in buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Deir el-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, October 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Eslaiah)
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. Hundreds of people joined the protests that broke out in Beirut and Amman, where angry crowds gathered outside the Israeli embassy.
With tens of thousands of troops stationed along the border, Israel was expected to launch a ground invasion of Gaza – but 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 look like. 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 had urged Palestinians to evacuate. 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.
Israeli soldiers gather in a staging area near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on Tuesday, October 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Mourners gather around the Kotz family’s five coffins during their funeral in Gan Yavne, Israel, on Tuesday, October 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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 hit in the past week, killing at least 14 agency 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 fighter killed so far in the war.
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.
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 entry of 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 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to establish a mechanism to provide aid to the Gaza Strip 2.3 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 on Tuesday that 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.
“The return of the hostages, which is sacred in our eyes, is a key element of all humanitarian efforts,” he told reporters, without elaborating.
More than a million Palestinians have fled their homes – about half of Gaza’s population – and 60% are now in the roughly 14-kilometer area south of the evacuation zone, the United Nations said.
Aid workers warned that the area was on the verge of total collapse. Hospitals were on the verge of blackout, threatening the lives of thousands of patients and leaving hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for bread and water.
The U.N. agency for the Palestinians said more than 400,000 displaced people were crammed into schools and other facilities in the south with little food or water.
According to the United Nations, Israel opened a water pipeline to the south for three hours, benefiting only 14 percent of Gaza’s population.
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. Civilians with foreign citizenship – many of them Palestinians with dual nationality – were also waiting in Rafah, desperate to get out.
Repeated reports that an opening was imminent have proven false as negotiations between the US, Israel and Egypt continued.
A senior Egyptian official called it a “very difficult, complicated back-and-forth process” and said talks were ongoing about deliveries to Gaza via Rafah and the Israeli border crossing at Karam Shalom. He said Israel insisted on receiving all aid and wanted to “ensure that this aid does not benefit Hamas.” He said Egypt had suggested that the UN monitor the entire process, including within the Gaza Strip. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press on the talks.
Hamas and Israeli officials expressed doubts about an immediate opening and said they were unaware of an agreement.
Biden’s visit is partly aimed at preventing the war from sparking a larger regional conflict. Violence broke out on Tuesday on Israel’s border with Lebanon, where Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters operate.
Israel has evacuated towns near its northern border with Lebanon, where the military has repeatedly exchanged fire with Hezbollah militants.
Israel said it killed four militants wearing explosive vests as they tried to enter the country from Lebanon on Tuesday morning. No group immediately took responsibility.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza could lead to violent reactions across the region.
“Bombings should be stopped immediately. “The Muslim nations are angry,” Khamenei said, according to state media.
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Kullab reported from Baghdad. Nessman reported from Jerusalem. Lee reported from Amman. Associated Press journalist Amy Teibel in Jerusalem; Abby Sewell in Beirut; Samy Magdy and Jack Jeffrey in Cairo; and Ashraf Sweilam in el-Arish, Egypt, contributed to this report.