Palestinian officials say hundreds were killed by a massive blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday, as humanitarian concerns mount over Israel\u2019s deprivation of food, fuel and electricity to the enclave\u2019s population. <\/p>\n
Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was sheltering thousands of displaced people when it was bombed Tuesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement. Many victims are still under the rubble, it added. <\/p>\n
Palestinian officials blamed ongoing Israeli airstrikes for the lethal incident. But the Israel Defense Forces has \u201ccategorically\u201d denied any involvement in the hospital attack, blaming instead a \u201cfailed rocket launch\u201d by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, a rival Islamist militant group in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Gaza has been under siege by Israel for more than a week, in response to the deadly incursion by Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the coastal enclave, home to 2.2 million people. Hospitals meanwhile are struggling to tend to the wounded across the territory, operating with shortages of electricity and water. <\/p>\n
Vital humanitarian aid is meanwhile piling up at Gaza\u2019s shuttered border, despite diplomatic efforts to open a corridor from Egypt. The United Nations and other officials have said they need assurance of safe passage for any potential aid convoys. <\/p>\n
Amid growing international pressure to address the crisis, US President Joe Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday, an extraordinary wartime visit that follows intense efforts by Secretary of State Antony Blinken across the Middle East. <\/p>\n
Biden was also due to attend a summit scheduled in Amman, the capital of Jordan, with several Arab leaders. However, the summit was canceled in the wake of the hospital blast. <\/p>\n
Instead of the planned meeting, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he would travel back to Ramallah for an urgent meeting of the Palestinian leadership. <\/p>\n
The Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the center of Gaza City was sheltering thousands of people who had been forcibly evacuated, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Hamas, which controls the enclave, said more than 500 people were killed by the bombing. The Palestinian Health Ministry earlier said preliminary estimates indicate that between 200 to 300 people died in the attack. <\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed the \u201cbarbaric terrorists in Gaza\u201d for \u201cattacking\u201d the hospital on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever brutally murdered our children is also murdering their children,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
As Israeli and Gazan officials blame the other for the hospital tragedy, protests have sprung up in a number of Middle Eastern cities including Amman, where protesters attempted to storm the US embassy. <\/p>\n
More than a week of Israeli bombardment has killed at least 3,000 people, including 1,032 girls and 940 boys, and wounded 12,500 in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said Tuesday. Casualties in Gaza over the past 10 days have now surpassed the number of those killed during the 51-day Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014. <\/p>\n
While the IDF has said it does not target hospitals, the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have struck medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes hit two densely populated refugee camps and an UNRWA school housing displaced people in central Gaza killed at least 18 people and injured scores, Palestinian officials said. <\/p>\n
The IDF said that high-level Hamas commander Ayman Nofal was killed in the airstrikes in Gaza on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
In the occupied West Bank at least 61 people have been killed, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Tuesday. At least 20 humanitarian workers from the UN, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent have been killed in Gaza, the UN said. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, health services within Gaza are on the brink and food and water supplies are running low. Twenty out of 23 hospitals were offering partial services because fuel reserves are \u201calmost totally depleted,\u201d the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warned on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
UN agencies have warned that shops are less than a week away from running out of available food stocks and that that Gaza\u2019s last seawater desalination plant had shut down, bringing the risk of further deaths, dehydration and waterborne diseases. <\/p>\n
The Palestinian Interior Ministry said Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 49 people in strikes on the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis. <\/p>\n