Israel-Hamas war updates: Hundreds killed in Gaza hospital ‘massacre’

Thanks for following along with all of today’s live updates from the Israel-Hamas war.

You can continue following our live updates on our new blog here.

You can also read more about the deadly Israeli bombing of a hospital in Gaza City here and see photos of the aftermath of the attack here.

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

• An Israeli strike has killed more than 500 Palestinians at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
• The Israeli military says the bombing – one of the deadliest attacks on a hospital in decades – was the result of a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.
• The mass killing at the hospital has spurred widespread international condemnation and protests at Israeli embassies in several countries.
• Protesters have clashed with Palestinian police in the occupied West Bank, underscoring anger at the Palestinian Authority leadership.
• US President Joe Biden is on his way to Israel where he is set to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But a planned summit in Amman with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the leaders of Jordan and Egypt has been cancelled.
• Amid Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza, Palestinians face a deepening humanitarian crisis, with aid still not allowed into the besieged enclave.
  

  

The Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital not only treated the many wounded in Gaza, it also sheltered people ordered by Israel to flee the north to “save themselves”. Thousands of children, women and the elderly believed they would be safe.

But an Israeli air attack shattered that notion, killing at least 500 people and wounding hundreds more in what is widely being described as a massacre. The hospital was engulfed in flames with mutilated bodies scattered among the destruction – many of the victims little kids.

Al Jazeera’s digital investigative unit has pinpointed the exact moment of the deadly attack through video analysis.

The fallout from the air strike continues, with dozens of demonstrations in the region. Protests outside Israeli, US and French embassies immediately erupted in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Tunisia.

A summit with the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and Jordan – including US President Biden – set for Wednesday was cancelled. Biden, meanwhile, still plans to visit Israel as it threatens an all-out ground invasion of Gaza.

And messages from Israel’s regional foes Iran and the Lebanon-based armed group Hezbollah promising “a response” if the carnage in Gaza is not immediately stopped continue to reverberate around the Middle East.

At least 500 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in what is being widely described as a war crime as an Israeli air strike targeted Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/vvFMt2fB1x

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 17, 2023

Palestinian Islamic Jihad described as “lies” the Israeli army’s accusations that it was responsible for the hospital strike.

“The Zionist enemy is trying hard to evade its responsibility for the brutal massacre he committed by bombing the Baptist Arab National Hospital in Gaza through his usual fabrication of lies, and through pointing the finger of blame at the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine,” it said in a statement.

“We therefore affirm the accusations put forward by the enemy are false and baseless.”

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the United Kingdom will work with its close allies to find out what happened at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital and to protect innocent civilians in Gaza.

In a post on X, the top UK diplomat wrote: “The destruction of Al Ahli hospital is a devastating loss of human life.”

“The UK has been clear. The protection of civilian life must come first. The UK will work with our allies to find out what has happened and protect innocent civilians in Gaza,” he said.

The UK government – along with the leadership of the Labour opposition – has made it clear that it stands behind Israel in the current conflict.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across the Middle East and North Africa to show their outrage in the aftermath of the deadly Israeli air attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

See photos from the demonstrations here.

The US president says he is “outraged and deeply saddened” by what he described as an “explosion” at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City “and the terrible loss of life that resulted”.

In a one-paragraph statement shared by the White House, Biden did not attribute blame for the deadly incident.

“Immediately upon hearing this news, I spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and have directed my national security team to continue gathering information about what exactly happened,” he said.

“The United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life during conflict and we mourn the patients, medical staff and other innocents killed or wounded in this tragedy.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he is horrified by the deaths of hundreds of people in the strike on a hospital in Gaza.

“Hospitals and medical personnel are protected under international humanitarian law,” Guterres wrote on. “My heart is with the families of the victims.”

I am horrified by the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in a strike on a hospital in Gaza today, which I strongly condemn. My heart is with the families of the victims. Hospitals and medical personnel are protected under international humanitarian law.

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 17, 2023

Biden has spoken with King Abdullah of Jordan and Netanyahu after the deadly hospital attack in Gaza, the White House says.

Biden – who is en route to Israel – was also briefed on the attack by his national security team and spoke over the phone with Secretary of State Antony Antony Blinken, the White House added.

Abbas had to speak after that hospital bombing. There’s no way that he couldn’t issue a statement particularly after he cancelled his meeting with Biden.

He also knows the mood on the streets of the occupied West Bank. Everybody there is supporting the people of Gaza and everything they’re going through. He couldn’t get this ceasefire, which is something he has been pushing to get. So clearly, he feels incredibly frustrated and like there is nothing to talk to the Americans about. So addressing his people has become the priority here.

Now remember, he doesn’t have any contact with Hamas. He doesn’t have any contact with the Israelis. The international community is really the only way he has of trying to put pressure on Israel to either start and maintain a ceasefire, or actually just entirely stop this war. Now that he’s not meeting with Biden, that’s an avenue that’s been cut off to him.

I think he feels like he is cut off from the international community [and] that he has to now rely on the Arab world.

Israel’s attack on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza is not the first time the Israeli army has targeted schools and hospitals – spaces traditionally considered safe havens during a war.

• Earlier this month, Israel’s bombs hit a school run by UNRWA – the UN agency for Palestinian refugees – in the Gaza Strip. The agency also says at least four schools in Gaza have suffered damage from Israeli bombings since the start of the war between Hamas and Israeli forces on October 7.
• Before the latest round of fighting, the Israeli military struck al-Fakhura School in the Jabalia camp in Gaza on January 6, 2009. More than 40 people were killed in the incident, according to UN estimates.
• During the 2014 Gaza-Israel war, another school, also in Jabalia, that was being used to shelter Palestinian families was shelled by Israeli forces. The attack killed at least 15 people, mostly women and children, and injured more than 100 others.
• Also during the 2014 war, Israeli shelling hit the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, killing four people and wounding dozens.

Abdel Hamid Abdel Jaber, a professor of political science and Middle East studies at Rutgers University in the US, says Abbas’s comments are “too little, too late”.

“He should have spoken much earlier,” Abdel Jabber told Al Jazeera. “Abbas should have come [out] from the beginning, putting all the blame on Israel, calling on his people to unite.”

He pointed out that dozens of Palestinians have also been killed in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza broke out, “and yet, [Abbas] was not visible” until tonight. “At least now he has to give this lengthy statement,” Abdel Jabber added.

Angry protesters are now trying to break through the security barriers at the US Embassy in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, according to Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from the scene.

Khodr described the scene as “chaotic”, and said the anger of the pro-Palestinian protesters was not just directed towards Israel but also the US for its seemingly unconditional support for Israel since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.

Hezbollah has already called for a day of anger on Wednesday following the Gaza hospital attack.

Abbas confirms he will not be meeting Biden in Amman and says that “given the massacre that took place tonight” he decided to return to the occupied West Bank and be with his people.

Abbas added that the Palestinians would not accept another Nakba in the 21st century and that they will not move, or surrender.

“We will not leave our homeland nor allow anyone to expel us from there,” Abbas added.

Abbas is now speaking, saying that Israel’s government has “no red lines” and that targeting the aA-Ahli Hospital is a “hideous war crime”.

“War is not going to bring anything but more suffering, more death, more destruction. It will not produce security, neither for the Israelis nor for the Palestinians.

“It threatens the security of the whole region, with a real threat of it expanding and spilling over.

“We have to understand the impact this war is having, not just on the immediate victims, the Gazans. You have to understand that this war is also provoking Arab, Muslim, Christian public opinion – human opinion, public opinion – all over the world.

“Our people are out on the streets right now. About 18,000 Jordanians are out on the street expressing their anger at the catastrophe, this aggression on Gazans.”

A White House official says: “After consulting with King Abdullah II of Jordan and in light of the days of mourning announced by President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, President Biden will postpone his travel to Jordan and the planned meeting with these two leaders and President Sisi of Egypt.

“He looks forward to consulting in person with these leaders soon and agreed to remain regularly and directly engaged with each of them over the coming days,” the official added.

Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, has told Al Jazeera that it was “in everybody’s interests” to postpone the planned summit in Jordan with Biden on Wednesday.

“People would expect that a summit of this nature would be able to respond to their demands to stop this war,” Safadi said of the talks.

“Knowing that we could not do that, it was better and it was the right call not to hold it tomorrow and to continue with consultation with a view to getting as soon as possible to a stage where this war ends and the catastrophe it’s causing the Palestinian people in Gaza stop[s].”

Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour has angrily accused Israel of carrying out the deadly attack at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, calling Israel’s Netanyahu “a liar” for blaming the strike on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group.

“Now they change the story to try to blame the Palestinians. It is a lie,” Mansour said during a press conference at the UN headquarters.

“He is a liar. His digital spokesperson tweeted that Israel did the hit thinking that there is, around this hospital, a base for Hamas, and then he deleted that tweet,” he added.

Mansour also pointed out that a spokesman for the Israeli military previously suggested that hospitals could be possible targets and should be evacuated.

“They are responsible for that crime and they cannot fabricate stories to deal with it.”

The Israeli blockade has made food and water increasingly scarce in the Gaza Strip and bombs continue to rain down upon the narrow coastal territory.

Fearing for their lives, the Abd Rabu family – made up of Sabreen, Ahmed and their three children – fled to the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza, where they hoped to find safety on the other side of the border in Egypt.

But then the missile struck. Read more here.