Oct. 17 (UPI) — Hundreds are feared dead Tuesday after explosions rocked Gaza’s Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, where thousands of civilians had sought shelter amid Israel’s fight with Hamas militants, according to local reports.
After the blast, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas canceled his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, according to Palestinian officials who said Abbas is traveling back to Ramallah and has called an urgent meeting of the Palestinian leadership for Tuesday night.
“The Al-Ahli Hospital massacre in the heart of Gaza Strip is a genocide. Enough silence on the aggression and recklessness of the occupation,” Hamas said in a statement, according to a report by CNN.
Meanwhile, Palestinian officials now say at least 3,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed over 1,300 Israelis and resulted in hundreds of Israeli citizens being taken hostage.
Also, Palestinian officials say 61 people have been killed in the West Bank, too.
In the apparent attack on the hospital on Tuesday, Sky News reports that a spokesperson for Gaza’s Ministry of Health estimated the number of deaths is in the hundreds.
“Initial estimates indicate that between 200 and 300 martyrs were killed in the bombing that targeted Baptist Hospital in Gaza city,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said, according to Sky News.
ABC News quoted an unnamed Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson as saying the hospital blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by Hamas, not IDF weapons.
Tal Heinrich, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN that the “IDF does not target hospitals.”
Unconfirmed images and video shared by local media show dead and injured people at the hospital in the aftermath of the strike.
CNN also reports that the Ministry of Health in Gaza says hundreds are likely to have been killed.
ABC reports that the Ministry of Health also said the death toll in the hospital strike likely exceeds 500 people, and that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has declared three days of mourning in the wake of the bombing.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the U.N. body that addresses Palestinian refugees, confirmed Tuesday that a school under its supervision in Gaza has been targeted, killing six people.
“At least 6 people were killed this afternoon when an UNRWA school was hit in the al-Maghazi refugee camp. This is outrageous and it again shows a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians. No place is safe in Gaza anymore, not even U.N. facilities,” the UNRWA posted on X Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has released footage it says shows a bombing attack that killed senior Hamas leader Ayman Nofal.
On Tuesday, Hamas confirmed that Nofal had been killed, according to the Israeli news outlet i24News.
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