Hundreds killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza City hospital, says Ministry
Gaza’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday hit a hospital in Gaza City packed with wounded people and other Palestinians seeking shelter, killing hundreds of people. If confirmed, the attack would be by far the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars since 2008.
Photos from al-Ahli hospital showed fire engulfing hospital halls, shattered glass and body parts scattered across the area. At least 500 people have been killed, the ministry said.
Several hospitals in Gaza City have become refuges for hundreds of people in the hope that they would be spared from bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said there were still no details on the hospital deaths: “We will get the details and keep the public informed. I don’t know if it was an Israeli airstrike.” In the south, ongoing attacks killed dozens of civilians and at least one senior Hamas figure was killed on Tuesday in attacks they said targeted militants.
US officials tried to convince Israel to allow supplies to be delivered to desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals, after days of failed hopes for an opening in the siege.
With Israel banning access to water, fuel and food in Gaza since last week’s brutal Hamas attack, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reached an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the creation of a mechanism for providing assistance to the area’s 2.3 million residents. .
U.S. officials said the gains may seem modest but stressed it was an important step forward.
Yet there was no talk of a deal as of late Tuesday. A top Israeli official said Tuesday that his country was demanding guarantees that Hamas militants would not seize aid deliveries. Tzahi Hanegbi, head of Israel’s National Security Council, suggested that access to 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 component in all humanitarian efforts,” he told reporters, without explaining whether Israel was demanding the release of all the roughly 200 people Hamas had kidnapped before allowing supplies in .
US President Joe Biden prepared to move into the region as he and other world leaders tried to prevent the war from sparking a wider regional conflict. Violence flared on Tuesday along Israel’s border with Lebanon, where Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants operate.
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,” military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said.
‘We haven’t said yet which ones they will be. Everyone is talking about a ground offensive. It could be something else.” In Gaza, dozens of wounded people were rushed to hospitals after heavy attacks outside the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, residents reported. Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official and former health minister, reported that 27 people were killed in Rafah and 30 in Khan Younis.
An Associated Press reporter saw about fifty bodies being taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Relatives came to collect the bodies, wrapped in white sheets, some soaked in blood.
An airstrike in Deir al Balah destroyed a house, killing a man and eleven women and children both inside and in a neighboring house, some of whom had been evacuated from Gaza City. Witnesses said there had been no warning before the strike.
Shelling from Israeli tanks hit a UN school in central Gaza where 4,000 Palestinians had taken refuge, killing six people and wounding dozens, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency said.
At least 24 UN facilities have been hit in the past week, killing at least 14 UN agency staff.
The Israeli military said it targeted Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers.
A barrage of strikes descended on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, leveling an entire city block and killing dozens of families inside, residents said. The dead included one of Hamas’s top military commanders, Ayman Nofal, the group’s military wing said – the most high-profile militant known to have been killed in the war so far.
Nofal, former intelligence chief of Hamas’s armed wing, was in charge of Hamas’s 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 the increasing number of civilian casualties in Gaza.
“It not only targets and kills civilians with unprecedented brutality, it also hides behind civilians,” he said.
In Gaza City, Israeli airstrikes also hit the home of Hamas’s top political official, Ismail Haniyeh, killing at least 14 people. Haniyeh is based in Doha, Qatar, but his family lives in Gaza City. Hamas’ media office did not immediately identify the dead.
Israel sealed off Gaza after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and led to about 200 people being captured in Gaza. Hamas militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since then, targeting cities across Israel.
Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 2,778 people and injured 9,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Nearly two-thirds of the dead were children, a ministry official said.
Another 1,200 people in Gaza are believed to be buried under rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.
More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes – roughly half of Gaza’s population – and 60 percent are now in the roughly 9-mile area south of the evacuation zone, the UN said.
Emergency workers warned that the area was near complete collapse. Hospitals were on the verge of losing electricity, endangering the lives of thousands of patients, and hundreds of thousands of people scrambled for bread and water.
According to the UN Palestinian Authority, more than 400,000 displaced people are crammed into schools and other facilities in the south.
The agency said it has only 1 liter of water per day for each staff member stuck in the area.
Israel opened a water line to the south for three hours, benefiting only 14 percent of Gaza’s population, the UN said.
At the Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s only link with Egypt, trucks full of aid were waiting to enter. The World Food Program said more than 300 tons of food were ready to enter Gaza.
Citizens with foreign citizenship – many of them Palestinians with dual citizenship – also waited in Rafah, desperate to get out.
“We come to the border crossing hoping it will open, but so far there is no information,” said Jameel Abdullah, a Swedish citizen.
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 tough, complicated back-and-forth process” and said the talks focused on deliveries via Rafah and Israel’s Karam Shalom crossing to Gaza. He said Israel insists on screening all aid and “ensuring that such aid does not benefit Hamas.” He said Egypt has proposed that the UN monitor the entire process, including in Gaza. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to inform the press about the talks.
Hamas and Israeli officials doubted an immediate opening, saying they were not aware of an agreement.
Blinken arrived in Israel last Thursday with a loud message of unequivocal American support for Israel in its campaign to destroy Hamas. But during meetings with seven Arab leaders over the next three days, Blinken’s tone subtly changed and he spoke more prominently about the need for humanitarian aid.
U.S. officials said that by then it had become clear that the already limited Arab tolerance of Israel’s military operations would disappear completely if conditions in Gaza deteriorated. They said an outright condemnation of Israel by Arab leaders would be a boon to Hamas and could embolden Iran, according to four officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking. That prompted Blinken to pressure Netanyahu for an aid deal.
Biden’s visit to Israel on Wednesday will signal the White House’s support for a key ally. He will also travel to Jordan to meet with Arab leaders amid fears the fighting could spread in the region.
Israel has evacuated towns near its northern border with Lebanon, where the army has repeatedly exchanged fire with Hezbollah militants.
Israel said it killed four militants wearing explosive vests who tried to enter the country from Lebanon on Tuesday morning. No group immediately claimed responsibility.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Israel’s continued offensive in Gaza could trigger a violent response across the region.
“Bombings must be stopped immediately. Muslim countries are angry,” Khamenei said, according to state media.