Israel Palestine news LIVE: Gaza hospital bomb kills ‘at least 500’ – with Israelis denying its airstrike destroyed building and blaming militants

Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari accused Hamas of inflating the number of casualties from the explosion in Gaza and said it could not know as quickly as it claimed what caused the blast.

Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, blamed the deadly blast on Israel.

The situation in the Gaza Strip is spiralling out of control, the head of the UN health agency warned on Wednesday, following a blast at a hospital that killed hundreds of people.

‘The situation in #Gaza is spiralling out of control,’ the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter. ‘We need violence on all sides to stop.’

‘Every second we wait to get medical aid in, we lose lives,’ he added. ‘We need immediate access to start delivering life-saving supplies.’

Israel’s military said on Wednesday it had seen no evidence of a direct hit on a hospital in the Gaza Strip the day before, where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in an explosion.

Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told journalists that there was no structural damage to buildings around the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital and no craters consistent with an air strike.

Hagari said he understood the blast was caused by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket, but launched a ‘global media campaign’ to blame Israel.

‘They went as far as inflating the numbers of casualties,’ he said. ‘They understood with absolute certainty that it was a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad that damaged the hospital.’

He said aerial footage confirms there was no direct hit to the hospital itself and there was no damage to nearby buildings.

He said the only location damaged is the parking lot outside the hospital.

Joe Biden is on his way to Israel today to stand with victims of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

His trip to Jordan has been cancelled, after a leaders summit on humanitarian aid for Palestinians was abruptly cancelled on Tuesday.

Treasury minister Andrew Griffith said it remains unclear who was behind the ‘devastating’ blast at a hospital in Gaza City.

The economic secretary to the Treasury told Times Radio: ‘I’m not going to speculate or try and attribute. I don’t think any of us know at this particular point in time.

‘We’ll work with allies to try and work out what happened.

‘It’s important that we remember that the military in Israel is under civilian democratic control, it’s a uninformed military service.’

Thousands of people trying to escape Gaza are gathered in Rafah, which has the territory’s only border crossing to Egypt. Mediators are pressing for an agreement to let aid in and refugees with foreign passports out.

The U.S. hoped to break a deadlock with President Joe Biden headed to the region, but a planned summit in Jordan was postponed.

Watch this video released by Israel which it is claimed shows the moment a rocket misfired in Gaza at the same time the Baptist Hospital was blown up, killing at least 500 people.

The short clip was released as a furious war of words broke out between Israel and Palestinian militants over who is responsible for the bombing. Both sides have denied responsibility.

Horrified doctors stood among a sea of children killed after a massive blast tore through a hospital in Gaza with fears more than 500 people are dead and scores more are trapped under the rubble.

The huge explosion tore through the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday night while it was being used to treat and shelter thousands of civilians amid the ongoing conflict.

The devastating fireball has sparked a venomous blame game between Hamas and Israel, with both sides blaming armed forces across the border for the destruction and furiously denying it was their fault.