Conflicting claims about Gaza hospital blast. So who’s said what?
An explosion at the al Ahli hospital in Gaza on Tuesday evening killed scores of Palestinians.
Here is what we know so far.
What happened at the hospital in Gaza?
There was a strike on al Ahli al Arabi hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday evening, around 7pm local time.
The exact number of people killed in the blast is, at this point, unclear.
Gaza’s health ministry said at least 500 people were killed. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) suggested this number was inflated.
Video from the Associated Press of the hospital showed its grounds strewn with bodies, many of them young children, as fire engulfed the building.
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What has Hamas said?
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.
Radar image Israel claims shows the paths of PIJ rockets passing over the hospital at the time of the explosion. Pic: Israel Defence Forces
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What has the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said?
The PIJ, a smaller militant group in the Gaza Strip, said it had no involvement in the blast and that Israel was responsible.
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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.
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Moment Gaza hospital explodes
Can rockets misfire?
Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall said, 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.
Why were there so many people at the hospital?
Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City after Israel ordered all residents in the north to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.
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.”
World
‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points – as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high
At least 798 people in Gaza have reportedly been killed while receiving aid in the past six weeks – while acute malnutrition is said to have reached an all-time high.
The UN human rights office said 615 of the deaths – between 27 May and 7 July – were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” said Ravina Shamdasani, from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Its figures are based on a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries, and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), its partners on the ground, and Hamas-run health authorities.
Aid agency Project Hope said on Thursday that 10 children were among at least 15 people killed as they waited for its clinic in Deir al Balah to open.
Ten children were reportedly killed when Israel attacked near a clinic on Thursday. Pic: AP
The GHF has claimed the UN figures are “false and misleading” and has repeatedly denied any violence at or around its sites.
Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said two of its sites were seeing their worst-ever levels of severe malnutrition.
Cases at its Gaza City clinic are said to have tripled from 293 in May to 983 in early July.
“Over 700 pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children are now receiving emergency nutritional care,” MSF said.
The humanitarian medical charity said food prices were at extreme levels, with sugar at $766 (£567) per kilo and flour $30 (£22) per kilo, and many families surviving on one meal of rice or lentils a day.
It’s a major concern for the estimated 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza, who risk miscarriage, stillbirth and malnourished infants because of the shortages.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the coastal territory.
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It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip.
The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.
The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what it says is a suspicious manner.
It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies from falling into the hands of militants.
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GHF aid distribution linked to increased deaths
Gaza situation ‘apocalyptic’, says UN expert
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
In response, a GHF spokesperson said: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”
The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.
At least 798 people in Gaza have been killed while receiving aid in six weeks, the UN human rights office has said.
A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said 615 of the killings were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
The office said its figures are based on numbers from a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as NGOs, its partners on the ground and the Hamas-run health authorities.
The GHF has claimed the figures are “false and misleading”. It has repeatedly denied there has been any violence at or around its sites.
The organisation began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the enclave.
It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip. The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.
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US aid contractors claim live ammo fired at Palestinians
The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what they say is a suspicious manner.
It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies falling into the hands of militants.
Read more:
GHF aid distribution linked to increased deaths
Gaza situation ‘apocalyptic’, says UN expert
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
In response, a GHF spokesperson told the Reuters news agency: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”
The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.
Ten children and two women are among at least 15 killed in an airstrike near a Gaza health clinic, according to an aid organisation.
Project Hope said it happened this morning near Altayara Junction, in Deir al Balah, as patients waited for the clinic to open.
The organisation’s president called it a “blatant violation of international humanitarian law, and a stark reminder that no one and no place is safe in Gaza“.
“No child waiting for food and medicine should face the risk of being bombed,” added the group’s project manager, Dr Mithqal Abutaha.
“It was a horrific scene. People had to come seeking health and support, instead they faced death.”
Operations at the clinic – which provides a range of health and maternity services – have been suspended.
Some of the children were reportedly waiting to receive nutritional supplements, necessary due to the dire shortage of food being allowed into Gaza.
Israel‘s military is investigating and said it was targeting a militant who took part in the 7 October terror attack.
“The IDF [Israel Defence Force] regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible,” added.
The deaths come as an agreement over a 60-day truce hangs in the balance – with President Trump cautiously saying it could happen “this week, or next week”.
Elsewhere in Gaza, the Nasser Hospital reported another 21 deaths in airstrikes in Khan Younis and in the nearby coastal area of Muwasi.
It said three children and their mother were among the dead.
Israel said its troops have been dismantling more than 130 Hamas infrastructure sites in Khan Younis over the past week, including missile launch sites, weapons storage facilities and a 500m tunnel.
On Wednesday, a soldier was shot dead when militants burst out of a tunnel and tried to abduct him, the military added.
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Eighteen soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks – one of the deadliest periods for the Israeli army in months.
A 22-year-old Israeli man was also killed on Thursday by two attackers in a supermarket in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said the Magen David Adom emergency service.
People on site reportedly shot and killed the attackers but information on their identity has so far not been released.
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Lack of food and water ‘lethal’ for Gaza children
Negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire are ongoing and President Trump reportedly put “heavy” pressure on Israel’s leader, who visited the US this week.
A major sticking point is said to be the status of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) inside Gaza during the 60-day ceasefire and beyond, should it last longer.
However, Sky News understands the Israeli government thinks the chances of a permanent truce are “questionable”.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war – more than half are women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry.
Its figure does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
The war began in October 2023 after Hamas killed around 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 251 others.
Some of them remain In Gaza and are a crucial part of ceasefire negotiations, which also include a planned surge in humanitarian aid into the strip.
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