Hundreds of People Killed when Hospital in Gaza Was Hit by Explosion: Palestinians Blame Israeli Air Strikes, IDF Accuses Militant Groups

The impact of the Israeli attack on Gaza October 2023. (Wikimedia Commons/Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contact with APAimages)

JAKARTA - Palestine and Israel blamed each other when air strikes hit hospitals in Gaza and killed hundreds of people on Tuesday.

The death toll is by far the highest of any incident in Gaza during the current violence, sparking protests in the West Bank, Istanbul and Amman.

The Palestinian Authority Minister of Health, Mai Alkaila, accused Israel of carrying out a "massacre" at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital, when they carried out intensive bombing of Gaza which has entered its 11th day, as reported by Reuters, October 18.

Meanwhile, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said as of Wednesday morning, hundreds of people had died and rescue workers were still removing bodies from the rubble.

In the first hours after the blast, a Gaza civil defense chief said 300 people had died, while a health ministry source put the figure at 500.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said targeting the hospital was a "terrible massacre of war," adding "Israel has crossed all red lines."

On the other hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was "groups" in Gaza who attacked hospitals, not the Israeli military.

"The whole world must know that it was the barbaric terrorists in Gaza who attacked the hospitals in Gaza, and not the IDF. Those who brutally killed our children also killed their own children," said PM Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, Israeli military (IDF) spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that a rocket fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group was passing through the hospital at the time of the attack, which he said hit the facility's parking lot.

In his statement to journalists, Hagari cast doubt on the number of Palestinian fatalities in the attack on the hospital, stating there was no direct attack on the facility. He said military drone footage showed "some kind of attack in the parking lot."

"The IDF did not attack the hospital in Gaza. The hospital was affected by the failure of a rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization," said Hagari.

He said the military did carry out an Israeli air force operation in the area around the time of the explosion at the hospital.

"But the operation used a different type of ammunition that does not match the records we have (of) the hospital," he argued.

"I don't even know how many people were hit here. No one has been able to verify it," he continued regarding the death toll.

Another spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, told CNN that his team intercepted a conversation in which the militants admitted there was a shooting error. He said the military would release recordings of the conversations.

Separately, the Islamic Jihad militant group denied any rockets were involved in the hospital explosion, saying they had not carried out any activity in or around Gaza City at the time.

Daoud Shehab, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, denied his group was responsible.

"This is lies and fabrication, completely untrue. The occupation is trying to cover up the terrible crimes and massacres they are committing against civilians," he told Reuters.

It is known that health authorities in Gaza said before Tuesday's incident that at least 3,000 people had been killed in 11 days of Israeli bombardment since Hamas militants rampaged through Israeli cities on October 7, killing more than 1,300 soldiers and civilians.