Doctors in Gaza City yesterday faced with dwindling medical supplies performed surgery on hospital floors, often without anesthesia, in a desperate bid to save badly wounded victims of a massive blast that killed civilians sheltering in a nearby hospital.
The Hamas militant group blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants.
At least 500 people were killed, the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip said.
Photo: AP
Rage at the hospital carnage spread through the Middle East as US President Joe Biden landed in Israel in the hopes of stopping the war from spreading.
Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his arrival.
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” he told Netanyahu in remarks in front of the media.
Photo: AFP
He later said his comment was based on data shown to him by the US Department of Defense.
After the hospital blast, Jordan canceled a meeting with Biden. Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. Biden would now visit only Israel, a White House official said.
The war between Israel and Hamas was “pushing the region to the brink,” Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi told state-run television.
The Israeli military held a briefing yesterday morning laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at al-Ahli Hospital.
It was not firing in the area, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage fired by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast, about 6:59pm on Tuesday, Hagari said.
The Israeli military also released a recording that it said was between two Hamas militants discussing the blast, during which the speakers say it was believed to be an Islamic Jihad misfire.
Hamas called Tuesday’s hospital blast “a horrific massacre,” saying it was caused by an Israeli strike, while Islamic Jihad accused Israel of “trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.”
The blast left gruesome scenes. Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.
Footage that The Associated Press confirmed was from the hospital showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children, as fire engulfed the building. The grass was strewn with blankets, school backpacks and other belongings.
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