New Delhi, October 18: Hundreds of Palestinians were killed when a huge blast happened at a hospital in Gaza City. Israel said the blast was caused by rockets shot by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but Hamas said it was an Israeli bombing.
The explosion happened at the Al Ahli hospital, where people who had been hurt in the conflict between Israel and Hamas were getting medical care or running away from Israeli bombings that were still going on.
Within Gaza, Hamas said that the blast killed around 500 people and blamed Israel for the deaths. In response, Israel said the attacks were the fault of Palestinian terrorists. However, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, rejected blame.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the people who set off the hospital bombing “barbaric” and denied that the Israeli Defence Force was involved, despite claims by Hamas.
Not long before this happened, at least six people were killed when an attack happened on a United Nations school in central Gaza that housed thousands of people. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, there were protests. Protesters fought with police, who used tear gas to break up the crowd. Before U.S. Vice President Joe Biden went to Israel and the Middle East, these two explosions happened.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was shocked and horrified by the hospital explosion. They stressed that hospitals should be safe places to save lives and should be protected by international humanitarian law.
Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN, strongly criticised the attack on the Al Ahli hospital. He was horrified that hundreds of Palestinian civilians had died and stressed that hospitals, clinics, medical staff, and UN property are protected by international law.
Ayman Safadi, the foreign minister of Jordan, said that Israel was pushing the area to the edge of disaster and called for an end to the war and the killings of Palestinians.
The government of Jordan and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, said they would not be attending the planned meeting with the president of the United States in Jordan.
The meeting between President Biden, King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, and President Sisi of Egypt had been set but was pushed back. He spoke out against the blast.
Biden was still going to go to Israel today to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the prime minister of Israel.
