Hundreds martyred in Gaza hospital blast, protests erupt

GAZA, Oct 18 (SABAH): About 500 Palestinians were martyred in a blast at a Gaza City hospital on Tuesday that Israeli and Palestinian officials stated on each other that ignited protests in the West Bank and around the Middle East.

Health authorities in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said an Israeli air strike caused the blast while Israel’s military attributed it to a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.  A Gaza civil defence chief said 300 people were killed in the blast and a health ministry official said 500 were killed.

Before Tuesday’s blast, health authorities in Gaza said at least 3,000 people had died in Israel’s 11-day bombardment that began after a Hamas Oct. 7 rampage on southern Israeli communities in which 1,300 people were killed and around 200 were taken into Gaza as hostages.

Gaza, a 45 km-long (25-mile) enclave home to 2.3 million people, has been ruled since 2006 by Hamas, an Islamist group that is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

The blast took place on the eve of a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden to Israel to show support for the country in its war with Hamas and to hear how Israel plans to minimize civilian casualties. One U.S. aim is to keep the conflict from spreading.

Regardless of who is found responsible for the explosion, which Hamas said had martyred patients and others left homeless by Israeli bombardment, it will complicate efforts to contain the crisis.  In one sign of this, Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, cancelled a summit his country was to host in Amman with Biden and the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders.

In another, Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah who were throwing rocks and chanting against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as popular anger boiled.

The blast drew condemnation across the Arab world, and protests were staged at Israel’s embassies in Turkey and Jordan and near the U.S. embassy in Lebanon, where security forces fired tear gas toward demonstrators.

Television footage showed protests in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taz, as well as in the Moroccan and Iraqi capitals. Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group denounced what it said was Israel’s deadly attack on the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital in Gaza, run by the Anglican church, and called for “a day of unprecedented anger” against Israel and Biden’s visit.

There were competing claims and denials from Israeli and Palestinian officials over who was responsible.  Abbas said that targeting the hospital was a “hideous war massacre,” adding that “Israel has crossed all red lines.”