Hundreds Dead After Attack on Gaza Hospital

Gaza – Hundreds were killed after a massive blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday, as humanitarian concerns mount over Israel's deprivation of food, fuel, and electricity to the enclave's population, the Palestinian officials stated.

"Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was sheltering thousands of displaced people when it was bombed on Tuesday," the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement. 

"Many victims are still under the rubble,"

Palestinian officials blamed ongoing Israeli airstrikes for the lethal incident. But the Israel Defense Forces has “categorically” denied any involvement in the hospital attack, blaming instead a “failed rocket launch” by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, a rival Islamist militant group in Gaza.

“We didn't strike that, and that the intelligence that we have suggests that it was a failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad, and I want to add, categorically, that we do not intentionally strike any sensitive facilities, any sensitive facilities, and definitely not hospitals,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said, as reported from the CNN International site.

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.

Vital humanitarian assistance is meanwhile piling up at Gaza’s 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.

As more information, Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the center of Gaza City houses thousands of people who were forcibly evacuated, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Hamas, which controls the enclave, said more than 500 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes on the hospital.

The Palestinian Health Ministry had earlier said that initial estimates suggested between 200 and 300 people were killed in the strikes.