Over 500 killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza’s Baptist hospital: Health ministry spokesperson to Al Jazeera

Over 500 people were killed on Tuesday night when an Israeli airstrike hit Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which was packed with wounded Gazans and other Palestinians seeking shelter from the constant and deadly bombardment, Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra told Al Jazeera.

A photo of the aftermath of the blast published on the Health Ministry’s Facebook shows the hospital engulfed in flames, with bodies strewn on the streets. The staggering death toll makes the hospital bombing the single deadliest Israeli strike in its five assaults on Gaza since 2008.

Qidra told Al Jazeera that Tuesday evening’s airstrike represents a new stage in the Israeli offensive on the besieged enclave, whereby “shelters, hospitals and squares where thousands of displaced people gathered” were directly targeted.

Families displaced from their homes by the ten consecutive days of airstrikes and by Israel’s move to cut off all supply of food, water and fuel to Gaza were gathered at the hospital in downtown Gaza City, said Qidra. 

He added that paramedics searching the site to recover the bodies had found at least 500 victims on the ground so far at the hospital, which is operated by the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem.

“What happened is a massacre the likes of which we haven’t seen before,” said a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defense authority speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday night, adding that there were no wounded, only the dead. 

Israel has conducted a relentless bombing campaign on Gaza since October 7, in retaliation for the unprecedented Hamas-led operation into Israel-held territory. Homes and key public facilities have been subject to strikes, displacing over half of Gaza’s 2.2 million people, according to the latest UNRWA estimate. With Tuesday’s airstrike, the already staggering loss of life in a 10-day period now exceeds 3,000 people. Another 1,000 people at least are missing and believed to be buried under the rubble, according to the Palestinian general directorate for civil defense.

Thus far, no humanitarian aid has been delivered to the strip for over seven days, since the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was hit by an Israeli airstrike. Three more airstrikes have impacted the crossing since then. 

Shortly after the incident, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning in the strongest terms the airstrike on the hospital, in which it said hundreds of innocent victims were killed, including Palestine’s injured and displaced. 

The statement read: "Egypt called on all countries in the world, not only those with power and influence, to condemn and put a stop to the violations without any equivocation and to call on Israel to stop targeting the Rafah border so that Egypt and other countries can reinforce Gaza with humanitarian aid as soon as possible."