About 500 people, including patients and displaced Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombardment that struck a packed hospital compound in central Gaza, according to officials in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The health ministry in Gaza said Wednesday’s blast at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital was caused by an Israeli air raid. Israel has attributed the explosion to a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) armed group. The PIJ has denied the allegation.
Tens of thousands of families have flocked to Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals seeking refuge from seemingly endless Israeli army shelling.
“The hospital was housing hundreds of sick and wounded, and people forcibly displaced from their homes,” the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
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The attack quickly sparked international condemnation, as news outlets and social media became filled with images of burning rooms and heavy stretchers.
“This is outrageous and again it shows a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on social media.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II, meanwhile, called the attack a “massacre” and a “shame on humanity”.
See photos from the scene below:
