A blast at a Gaza hospital killed hundreds of Palestinians just before U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Israel to visit the region as the conflict between the Israeli military and the Hamas militant group raged. The blast at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital compound shook buildings and ripped through a courtyard full of displaced people, killing dozens and wounding many more. Both sides have blamed each other for the explosion, with Hamas saying it resulted from an Israeli airstrike and the Israeli military claiming that it was a rocket fired by a “terrorist group” that misfired in mid-air and landed on the medical facility. The death toll has been hard to verify, and open-intelligence analysts say it is difficult to pinpoint who was responsible.
The attack at the hospital, which a health ministry official said was filled with displaced families, happened after Israeli forces had ordered residents of several Gaza neighborhoods to evacuate to Al-Ahli Arab and other hospitals. The crowds gathered there, hoping they would be shielded from Israel’s bombardment, obliterating entire city blocks over the past 12 days.
On Tuesday evening, surgeon Hosam Naim was performing surgery when he heard a screech and felt a vibration. “Then I saw the fireball,” he said. Naim and his patients escaped, but scores of others were killed in the explosion that ripped through the compound and left behind blood-stained walls and wrecked cars.
As details of the attack were released, a chorus of anger and outrage erupted across the Middle East, fueled partly by social media and Arabic satellite television images that showed bloodied, limbless women and men. Arab governments, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, quickly blamed Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces disputed those accusations on Wednesday, with the army’s chief spokesman arguing that an Israeli drone video of the site shows no sign of a crater that would be expected from the kind of artillery used by Israeli aircraft. The IDF said that based on intelligence streams and intercepted communications, it concluded the hospital blast resulted from an errant rocket fired by the terrorist group Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for it.
Those who saw the footage and photos met those claims with skepticism. They also noted that it was a loud explosion and did not leave a crater in the parking lot, which would have been typical for an Israeli airstrike.
Despite the doubts, the U.S. government has stood squarely behind Israel from the start of the conflict, and a statement from the National Security Council shared with VOA says that a review of the evidence so far shows that Israel was not to blame for the blast at the Gaza hospital. But the statement says the investigation is continuing and could change. It’s a tough call that will likely continue to be debated in the coming days.
