The video was filmed just after the explosion, when first responders arrived. The man filming repeats: ” In the name of God “, as he wanders between the bodies of adults and children, some torn to pieces among belongings, blankets and bags scattered in the grass. A powerful explosion hit the courtyard of Al-Ahli hospital, in the center of Gaza City, on Tuesday, October 17, around 7:30 p.m. In addition to the sick and wounded from the Israeli bombings carried out in retaliation for the Hamas attack on October 7, hundreds of displaced people had gathered there, hoping to find in this patch of greenery a safer refuge than their own homes. The local health ministry announced the death of“at least 500 people”.
The Israeli army accuses Hamas’s ally, Islamic Jihad, of “responsible for the failed rocket fire which hit the hospital”. The spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, said Wednesday morning to the press “no crater or any other element” were found to indicate that an airstrike was the cause of the explosion and assured that“no Israeli fire had hit the hospital”. Islamic Jihad has denied the accusations. For the leader of Hamas in exile in Qatar, Ismaël Haniyeh, the responsibility of Israel and “of the United States which offered unconditional support to this enemy [Israël] to commit these massacres” there is no doubt. The movement responded to the explosion at the hospital by firing a salvo of rockets toward central Israel. Since October 7 and the total closure of the enclave by the Jewish state, the international press has not had access to the field.
Tuesday evening, the many injured were, as far as possible, transported to the Al-Shifa government hospital, already overwhelmed by the influx of victims of the bombings of the last eleven days. “It’s a massive massacre and we can’t cope”, declared the spokesperson for civil protection in Gaza, Mahmoud Bassal, interviewed on the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera. Locked by a total Israeli blockade since October 7, the enclave lacks everything: medicine, fuel for generators, disposable medical equipment, gas, water.
“My daughters and I were thrown backwards by the blast of the explosionsays a neighbor, reached by telephone and who prefers to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. All the ambulances rushed to the site… We saw the fires, the bodies scattered everywhere. Blood everywhere. For us, it was impossible for it to be bombed. It’s a Christian hospital! I lost faith in humanity. » Al-Ahli hospital, like twenty others in Gaza, had received orders from the Israeli authorities to evacuate to the south of the enclave.
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