Hamas released a statement after the blast calling it a “crime of genocide” as it blamed it on Israel.
The militant group said: “The horrific massacre carried out by the Zionist occupation in the Gaza City’s al Ahli hospital which left hundreds of casualties, most of them displaced families, patients, children and women, is a crime of genocide that once again reveals the ugly face of this criminal enemy and its fascist and terrorist government.”
What has Israel said?
Israel has denied it was responsible for the blast, claiming the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militant group hit it with a misfired rocket launched from Gaza at 6.59pm local time.
Overnight, the IDF posted a video allegedly showing a rocket failing and falling on to Gaza at the same time the al Ahli hospital was hit.
In a news conference on Wednesday morning, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the army determined there were no air force, ground or naval attacks in the area at the time of the blast.
He also said there was no direct hit on the hospital. Instead, he said, a PIJ rocket hit the car park and ignited vehicles.
Israel claimed the craters caused by Israeli munitions were not present at the hospital and released images it said backs this up.
Videos and stills of the damage geolocated by Sky News match the location shared by the IDF.
Sky News has been unable to verify the claims the damage does not match the craters an Israeli missile would have caused.
Audio released by Israel purportedly shows two Hamas militants discussing the incident and saying the missile belongs to the PIJ and was fired from a cemetery behind the hospital.
Sky News cannot independently verify this audio from Israel.
The PIJ, a smaller militant group in the Gaza Strip, said it had no involvement in the blast and that Israel was responsible.
Strike ‘probably’ an accident from within Gaza – analyst
Defence analyst Michael Clarke told Sky News the balance of probability points to Israeli claims being true – that the PIJ misfired a rocket.
When pressed, he put the probability at 60-70%.
The Iron Dome system allows Israel to track rockets headed toward Israel, which makes IDF’s assertion that it knows missiles were fired from behind the hospital “plausible”.
The keys to certainty are whatever missile fragments remain on hospital grounds, he said. These can provide 95% certainty as to where the missile came from – but they are under Hamas’s control, he said.
“I would expect Hamas to produce some sort of Israeli missile at some point derived from somewhere and say ‘this is the missile that hit the hospital’, and that may or may not be true.”
US independent assessment finds PIJ likely caused blast
The US has an independent assessment that it was a PIJ rocket that misfired and hit the hospital, two senior officials have told our US partner network NBC News.
This would match what Israel has said caused the blast.
The assessment was based on “analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information”, White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson told NBC News.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:26
Moment Gaza hospital explodes
Can rockets misfire?
Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkallsaid, without making a judgement on the hospital strike, that rockets launched by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been known to “misfire and they do land short”.
Do militant groups have rockets that can cause this damage?
Bunkall went on: “People are pointing out that when Hamas or Islamic Jihad rockets hit parts of southern Israel, they never really make the sort of damage that we saw at the hospital last night.”
The IDF spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, was asked about this during Wednesday morning’s news conference – and said the scale of the destruction was caused by a misfired rocket from PIJ landing in a car park, and cars subsequently exploding.
Ibrahim al Naqa, a doctor at the hospital, told Reuters: “This place created a safe haven for women and children, those who escaped the Israeli bombing.”
Russia launched a large drone attack on Kyiv overnight, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning the attack shows his capital needs better air defences.
Ukraine’s air defence units shot down 50 of 73 Russian drones launched, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries as a result of the attacks.
Russia has used more than 800 guided aerial bombs and around 460 attack drones in the past week.
Warning that Ukraine needs to improve its air defences, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “An air alert has been sounded almost daily across Ukraine this week”.
“Ukraine is not a testing ground for weapons. Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state.
“But Russia still continues its efforts to kill our people, spread fear and panic, and weaken us.”
Russia did not comment on the attack.
More on Russia
Related Topics:
It comes as Russian media reported that Colonel General Gennady Anashkin, the commander of the country’s southern military district, had been removed from his role over allegedly providing misleading reports about his troops’ progress.
While Russian forces have advanced at the fastest rate in Ukraine since the start of the invasion, forces have been much slower around Siversk and the eastern region of Donetsk.
Russian forces have reportedly captured a British man while he was fighting for Ukraine.
In a widely circulated video posted on Sunday, the man says his name is James Scott Rhys Anderson, aged 22.
He says he is a former British Army soldier who signed up to fight for Ukraine’s International Legion after his job.
He is dressed in army fatigues and speaks with an English accent as he says to camera: “I was in the British Army before, from 2019 to 2023, 22 Signal Regiment.”
He tells the camera he was “just a private”, “a signalman” in “One Signal Brigade, 22 Signal Regiment, 252 Squadron”.
“When I left… got fired from my job, I applied on the International Legion webpage. I had just lost everything. I just lost my job,” he said.
“My dad was away in prison, I see it on the TV,” he added, shaking his head. “It was a stupid idea.”
In a second video, he is shown with his hands tied and at one point, with tape over his eyes.
He describes how he had travelled to Ukraine from Britain, saying: “I flew to Krakow, Poland, from London Luton. Bus from there to Medyka in Poland, on the Ukraine border.”
Russian state news agency Tass reported that a military source said a “UK mercenary” had been “taken prisoner in the Kursk area” of Russia.
The UK Foreign Office said it was “supporting the family of a British man following reports of his detention”.
The Ministry of Defence has declined to comment at this stage.
The body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been found, Israel has said.
Zvi Kogan, the Chabad representative in the UAE,went missing on Thursday.
A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office on Sunday said the 28-year-old rabbi was murdered, calling it a “heinous antisemitic terror incident”.
“The state of Israel will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death,” it said.
The Emirati government gave no immediate acknowledgment that Mr Kogan had been found dead. Its interior ministry has described the rabbi as being “missing and out of contact”.
“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the interior ministry said.
Mr Kogan lived in the UAE with his wife Rivky, who is a US citizen. He ran a Kosher grocery store in Dubai, which has been the target of online protests by pro-Palestinian supporters.
The Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of Orthodox Judaism, said Mr Kogan was last seen in Dubai.
Israeli authorities reissued their recommendation against all non-essential travel to the UAE and said visitors currently there should minimise movement and remain in secure areas.
The rabbi’s disappearance comes as Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the two countries traded fire in October.
While the Israeli statement on Mr Kogan did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have previously carried out kidnappings in the UAE.
The UAE diplomatically recognised Israel in 2020. Since then, synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners have been set up for the burgeoning Jewish community but the unrest in the Middle East has sparked deep anger in the country.