Hamas-Israel conflict live updates: Gaza hospital explosion kills hundreds; Joe Biden set to travel to Israel

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Key posts

• 7.52amIsraeli PM blames ‘terrorists’ for hospital strike
• 7.11amWorld leaders react to Gaza hospital explosion
• 7.00amIsrael says Gaza hospital explosion caused by misfired Palestinian rocket
• 6.59amProtesters clash with authorities in West Bank
• 6.58amAbbas cancels meeting with Biden, officials say
• 6.20amThe morning’s headlines at a glance

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Hundreds killed in explosion at Gaza City hospital

An explosion has killed hundreds of Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people, health authorities in the besieged enclave said.

The reported strike on Tuesday Israel-time was the bloodiest single incident since Israel launched an unrelenting bombing campaign against Gaza in retaliation for a deadly cross-border Hamas assault on southern Israeli communities on October 7.

The explosion at Al-Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza.Credit: Husam Zomlot/X

Palestinian health authorities in the besieged enclave said the explosion was caused by an Israeli air strike.

The Israeli military, however, denies involvement in Gaza hospital blast, saying it was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.

A civil defence chief in Hamas-ruled Gaza said on Al-Jazeera television that more than 300 people were killed at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital. A Gaza Health Ministry official said at least 500 people were killed and injured.

Wounded Palestinians at the hospital following an explosion in Gaza City.Credit: AP

Hamas said the blast at the hospital mostly killed displaced people. The victims included patients, women and children.

“There are scores of dismembered and crushed bodies, baths of blood,” Izzat El-Reshiq, a senior Hamas member, said.

Read our full report here

Reuters, AP

Israeli PM blames ‘terrorists’ for hospital strike

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken to social media, blaming
“barbaric terrorists in Gaza” for the hospital airstrike.

“The entire world should know: It was barbaric terrorists in Gaza that attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the IDF,” he wrote.

“Those who brutally murdered our children also murder their own children.”

Hamas blamed Israel for the airstrike earlier this morning.

“A new war crime committed by the (Israeli) occupation by bombing the Al-Ahli Hospital in the center of Gaza City,” said Salama Marouf, a spokesperson for Hamas.

“The hospital was housing hundreds of patients, wounded, and those forcibly displaced from their homes due to the strikes.”

Attack on Gaza hospital ‘unprecedented’ in scale, WHO says

The attack on the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip that killed hundreds was “unprecedented”, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

“This attack is unprecedented in scale,” said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the West Bank and Gaza.

“We have seen consistent attacks on healthcare in the occupied Palestinian territory.“

Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said there were patients, healthcare workers and internally displaced people in the hospital when it was struck.

“The hospital was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military,” he said.

“The order for evacuation has been impossible to carry out given the current insecurity, critical condition of many patients, and lack of ambulances, staff, health system bed capacity, and alternative shelter for those displaced,” he added.

Reuters

Former videojournalist killed in Hamas attack at home with his family

Yaniv Zohar, a former Associated Press videojournalist who covered conflicts and major news in his native country for three decades, was killed in his home during Hamas’ bloody cross-border rampage on October 7 along with his wife and two daughters.

He was 54.

Zohar worked for AP’s Israel bureau for 15 years, from 2005 to 2020, covering all the major news events in the country. But his area of expertise was the intermittent warfare on the doorstep of his home in the Nahal Oz kibbutz near the border with the Gaza Strip.

Zohar was often the first to alert the news desk of violence nearby and the first to arrive on the scene.

Most notably, he was deeply involved in coverage of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and was the first newsperson on the scene of the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit by Palestinian militants the following year

AP

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says there are 46 Australians in Gaza

Turning now to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, who says there are 46 Australians in Gaza, one more than previously reported.

“I can’t give you the demographic information of who it is, all I know is that there are 46 Aussies with Australian passports in their hands,” she just told Seven’s Sunrise program this morning.

The home affairs minister said the government had already helped 1500 people to leave the region, but they were now focused on the Australians in Gaza.

“We’ve got to now focus our attention on those 46 people, and we’re doing everything we can.
“We hope that we’ll be able to report back something positive,” O’Neil said.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles revealed yesterday there were 45 Australians in Gaza, which was more than double the number the government said it knew about the day before.

World leaders react to Gaza hospital explosion

Russia and the United Arab Emirates have requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council on October 18 after the blast at a hospital in Gaza City, Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said.

The request comes as world leaders slowly react to the horrific explosion at the hospital, which has killed hundreds.

Wounded Palestinians are treated in a hospital in Khan Younis. Credit: AP

Saudi Arabia strongly condemned the “heinous crime” it said was committed by Israeli forces, the kingdom’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Israel has denied it was behind the blast, saying instead it was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.

“Russia and the UAE have requested an urgent open meeting of the UN Security Council for the morning of Oct. 18 over the Gaza hospital strike,” Polyanskiy wrote in his Telegram channel.

Jordan’s King Abdullah also made a statement and called the explosion a “massacre”.

In a statement, the monarch, who blamed the bombing on Israel, said Israel should immediately end its war against the enclave and its actions against innocent Palestinians was a “shame on humanity”.

Reuters

Israel says Gaza hospital explosion caused by misfired Palestinian rocket

The Israeli military says it had no involvement in an explosion that killed hundreds of people at a Gaza City hospital and that the blast was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says an Israeli airstrike caused the blast, and that it killed some 500 people, many of whom had sought shelter from an ongoing Israeli offensive.

The Israeli military, however, said Palestinian militants had fired a barrage of rockets near the hospital at the time.

“From the analysis of the IDF’s operational systems, an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed in the vicinity of the hospital, when it was hit,” an IDF spokesman said.

“According to intelligence information, from a number of sources we have, the PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) organisation is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital.”

AP, Sky News

Protesters clash with authorities in West Bank

Thousands of protesters have gathered in the main square of Ramallah in the West Bank, clashing with security forces in response to the strike of a hospital in Gaza.

In live footage from the square, protesters can be seen chanting against President Mahmoud Abbas and throwing rocks at Palestinian police.

At one stage, a security car charged through the square towards protesters in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

Clashes with Palestinian security forces have also broken out in a number of other cities in the occupied West Bank late on Tuesday, according to witnesses.

With Reuters

Abbas cancels meeting with Biden, officials say

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has cancelled a planned meeting with US President Joe Biden, following an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital on Tuesday that killed hundreds, a senior Palestinian official said.

The meeting was due to take place in Jordan.

The senior Palestinian official said Abbas was returning to Ramallah, the seat of his government in the occupied West Bank.

Reuters

World Health Organisation condemns attack on Gaza hospital

The World Health Organisation has condemned the attack on al-Ahli Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip that killed at least 300 people.

Countries including Canada, Turkey, Iran, Qatar and Jordan have also criticised the Israeli airstrike.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described it as “horrific and absolutely unacceptable” when asked about the strike, which health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave said had killed hundreds of people.

European Council President Charles Michel said attacks on civilian infrastructure were not in line with international law.

After an emergency video conference of European Union leaders, Michel said the report of the attack on the hospital “seems to be confirmed” and added: “An attack against civilian infrastructure is not in line with international law.”

Meanwhile Russia and the UAE have requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council in the aftermath of the strike.

It began as a holy day. It ended with barbarity and bravery on gruesome display

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald’s journalists Matthew Knott and Kate Geraghty are on the ground in Israel reporting on the unfolding crisis. Here is their account from Be’er Sheva, familiar to many Australians as the site of a famous ANZAC and British victory in World War One.

A shoot-out between Israeli cops and Hamas terrorists. Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Kill or be killed. Daniel Damri’s story of October 7 sounds like a video game. But as he recounts his survival to us from his hospital bed it was clear this wasn’t virtual reality, it was reality. The limitless barbarity and bravery of which mankind is capable is on gruesome display, here in the dusty plains of the Negev Desert.

Rabbi Shachar Butzchak being treated in the Soroka Medical Centre for bullet wounds in his leg after being shot during the Hamas attack in Ofakim, Israel.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Damri’s plan for Saturday was simple: to relax with his wife and three young children in their hometown of Be’er Sheva, a city of 213,000 people in southern Israel. It was Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, and the 32-year-old police special forces officer was not rostered to work. The perfect day for a hike and a trip to the playground.

This tranquil vision was shattered when he awoke at 6.30am to the wailing cry of air raid sirens. Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, was firing rockets into Israel – a common occurrence in this land of perpetual conflict.

Read the full report here: 

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