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Apart from the large number of in-house patients at the hospital, there were hundreds of Palestinians who had taken refuge at the hospital over the last two to three days after Israel had asked civilians from the northern Gaza Strip areas to move south. The Palestinians taking refuge at the hospital had hoped that they would be spared Israel’s bombardment.

Asserting that Israel wasn’t behind the strike, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) published drone footage that it said proves that the deadly blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital’s parking lot was not caused by its ordnance, which it said, “would have left a crater and not a burning parking lot and shrapnel-pocked roofs.”

The drone video shows the hospital’s parking lot where a large fire was caused in the area as a result of the blast, but there is no crater. “Israeli strikes generally leave large holes in the ground,” the IDF said. The drone footage also points to shrapnel that landed on the roof of the nearby buildings, which remain largely intact.

IDF also released a soundtrack, which it claimed, was “a communication between terrorists talking about rocket misfiring” and said, the terrorists realised that the rocket had misfired and made specific reference to the Al-Ahli Madani Hospital. Israel, instead, blamed it on what it called a “failed rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group.” The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller, more radical Palestinian militant group that often cooperates with Hamas in their shared struggle against Israel, has dismissed Israel’s allegation.

However, Israel’s claim was corroborated by other video footage, including that of an Al Jazeera news channel’s live stream, circulating since the incident. The Qatari TV network is often blamed for being biased against Israel and has been at loggerheads with the Israeli establishment.

US President Joe Biden touched down in Israel on Wednesday for a diplomatic scramble to prevent the war with Hamas from spiralling into an even larger conflict, a challenge that became more difficult as outrage swept through the Middle East over an explosion that killed hundreds in a Gaza Strip hospital.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Biden at Ben Gurion Airport and they embraced before speeding away for hours of meetings, where the US president is expected to push for allowing critical humanitarian aid to be delivered to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

John Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, told reporters aboard Air Force One that Biden “wants to get a sense from the Israelis on the situation on the ground” and will “ask some tough questions.”

“He’ll be asking them as a friend,” Kirby added.

The president also planned to meet Israeli first responders and the families of victims killed and hostages taken when Hamas made its incursion into Israel. (AP)

An Israeli military spokesman said Israel crosschecked intelligence that proved a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch caused a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital.

Had it been an Israeli strike, “we would have seen craters and structural damage to the building, both of which haven't been identified,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.

Most of the damage was caused by propellant in the rocket and not by the warhead, he said. Propellant remained because the launch failed and the rocket didn't travel as far as intended, he said.

According to Israeli intelligence reports, Islamic Jihad fired about 10 rockets from a nearby cemetery at 6:59 pm Tuesday, and there were reports of an explosion at the hospital at that time, Hagari said.

He alleged that Hamas understood it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired but “launched a global media campaign to hide what really happened”. (AP)

Shifa Hospital, where hundreds of victims of the al-Ahli Hospital blast were taken, will run out of fuel on Wednesday unless more supplies enter the Gaza Strip, the hospital's general director says.

The hospital, Gaza’s largest, is stretched far beyond its capacity following the al-Ahli explosion, Mohammed Abu Selmia said Wednesday, adding that health workers were still treating severely wounded patients.

“They are all in a terrible situation,” he told AP. “A young woman whose limbs were amputated, a child whose intestines came out, many others have had limb amputations, bleeding in the brain, bleeding in the liver and spleen." He said earlier that doctors were performing operations on the floor without anesthesia and that a shortage of essential medical supplies was an urgent issue.

If the hospital runs out of fuel, it could be forced into a total shutdown of services, he said, adding that doctors would “remain with the sick and wounded”. (AP)

Gaza’s Interior Ministry said Israel renewed airstrikes before dawn on Wednesday and hit locations across the Gaza Strip after the blast at al-Ahli Hospital. At least 37 people were killed following attacks in the al-Qasasib and Halima al-Saadia areas of Jabalia, north of Gaza, it said. (AP)

Doctors in Gaza City faced with dwindling medical supplies performed surgery on hospital floors, often without anaesthesia, in a desperate bid to save badly wounded victims of a massive blast that killed hundreds of Palestinians sheltering in a nearby hospital amid Israeli bombings and a blockade of the territory.

The explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital on Tuesday night left gruesome scenes.

Video that AP confirmed was from the hospital showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children, as fire engulfed the building.

The grass was strewn with blankets, school backpacks and other belongings. On Wednesday morning, the blast scene was littered with charred cars and the ground was blackened by debris.

Ambulances and private cars rushed some 350 casualties to Gaza City’s main hospital, al-Shifa, which was already overwhelmed with wounded from other strikes, said its director, Mohammed Abu Selmia.

Victims arrived with gruesome injuries, Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said.

Some were decapitated, disemboweled, or missing limbs.

Doctors in the overwhelmed hospital resorted to performing surgery on floor and in the halls, mostly without anaesthesia.

“We need equipment, we need medicine, we need beds, we need anaesthesia, we need everything,” Abu Selmia said.

He warned that fuel for the hospital’s generators would run out within hours, forcing a complete shutdown, unless supplies enter the Gaza Strip.

While Israel has blamed Islamic Jihad, the latter dismissed those claims, accusing Israel of “trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.” The group pointed to Israel's order that Al-Ahli be evacuated and reports of a previous blast at the hospital as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target.

It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bomb's fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel. (AP)

Jordan cancelled a planned summit with President Joe Biden, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Jordan's King Abdullah II because it “would not be able to stop the war now,” Jordan’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs said.

Ayman Al-Safadi said in a statement on Wednesday that “Jordan will continue to work with everyone so that when this summit is held, it will be able to achieve what is required of it, which is to stop the war, deliver humanitarian support to the people of Gaza, and put an end to this crisis.”

The summit, originally scheduled for later Wednesday, was cancelled after a blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds of people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants. (AP)

Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group says its fighters have hit an Israeli Merkava tank with an anti-tank missile, inflicting casualties among the troops.

The group said the attack early Wednesday targeted an Israeli army position across the border from the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab. The Israeli army said it is checking reports that an anti-tank missile was fired from Lebanon. (AP)

The UN Security Council scheduled a Wednesday vote on a resolution that initially condemned “the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas” on Israel as well as all violence against civilians, while calling for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver desperately needed aid to millions in Gaza.

Negotiations on wording of the draft resolution sponsored by Brazil continued throughout Tuesday, and the final version to be voted on had not been released by late Tuesday.

The vote follows the council’s rejection Monday evening of a Russian-drafted resolution that condemned violence and terrorism against civilians and called for a “humanitarian cease-fire” but made no mention of Hamas.

Russia has proposed two amendments to the Brazil resolution that will be voted on first. One calls for a “humanitarian cease-fire.” The other would condemn indiscriminate attacks on civilians and assaults on “civilian objects” in Gaza like hospitals and schools that deprive people of the means to survive.

Brazil holds the Security Council presidency this month and its UN mission said the vote would be followed by an emergency meeting to discuss Tuesday's huge explosion and fire at a Gaza City hospital packed with patients, relatives and Palestinians seeking shelter. The Hamas-run health ministry said at least 500 died.

Russia, the United Arab Emirates and China called for the emergency session, at which UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo and UN Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland were to brief council members.

Egypt’s UN ambassador, Osama Mahmoud, told reporters that a summit will take place Saturday in Cairo as scheduled with regional leaders and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The five permanent Security Council nations are also invited, he said.

Mahmoud said the summit will address the humanitarian crisis sparked by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how to achieve a cease-fire, and whether “any serious attempt to have a political horizon” exists to tackle the issues blocking an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. (AP)