US President Joe Biden has arrived in Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
He pledges US support and says last night’s hospital attack in Gaza “appears” to have been caused “by the other team”.
Israel says the blast on Tuesday evening was caused by a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants.
The IDF says its evidence shows a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket, fired from a cemetery, landed in the hospital car park.
Hamas, Palestinian authorities, and other countries blame Israel for the explosion, which Hamas says killed 500 people.
Israel has carried out air strikes on targets across Gaza since the Hamas attacks on 7 October.
The IDF says at least 450 rockets fired from Gaza since then have landed on Gazan territory. Earlier we heard from the Israeli military’s Daniel Hagari, who spoke at length about last night’s blast at a Gazan hospital.
There’s been claim and counterclaim. Our colleagues at BBC Verify are poring through images, audio, and on-the-ground reporting to piece the incident together.
Here’s a rundown of what Hagari says happened:
Timings and responsibility
Hagari said at 18:59 local time (16:59 BST) yesterday a “barrage of around 10 rockets” was fired by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad – around the same time there were reports of an explosion at the hospital.
He said the IDF’s aerial footage analysis showed “with absolute certainty” that the blast was caused by a “misfired” Islamic Jihad rocket, which was fired from a cemetery near the hospital.
Damage analysis
Hagari said the “only location damaged” was a car park outside the hospital “where we can see signs of burning” – and argued Israeli strikes would’ve caused a more significant aftermath like “craters and structural damage”.
He also said there was evidence of the rocket launch failing because a propellent is still evident
Time taken
Hagari said it would be “impossible to know what happened as quickly as Hamas claimed they knew”
When asked by a reporter why anyone should believe the IDF’s version of events, he admitted Israel had been “fast to go to conclusions” in the past, but he says they had taken hours to “double check” they had their facts right
He said their intelligence included:
Confirming there was no IDF fire – “by land, sea or air” – that inadvertently hit the hospital
Using radar systems to track the rockets fired, “from within Gaza”, with a trajectory showing they were fired from a cemetery nearby.
Getting hold of communication between militants talking about the rocket misfiring (which we explain in more detail here)
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Turning to last night’s hospital blast in Gaza, Biden tells Israel’s prime minister it “appears” it was “done by the other team”.
Biden says he’s “deeply saddened and outraged” by the incident.
“Based on what I’ve seen it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there’s a lot of people out there who are not sure, so we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” he says.
As a reminder, the BBC is working to piece together last night’s hospital blast – which Hamas and Palestinian authorities blame on an Israeli air strike. BBC