The Israeli military said there was no evidence of a targeted attack by its air force on a hospital in the Gaza Strip, where an explosion killed at least 200 Palestinians on Tuesday evening.

A military spokesman told reporters that there was no structural damage to the buildings surrounding the Ahli Arab Hospital and no craters were visible, such as those usually caused by an airstrike. The army has Photos released Which indicates that the explosion occurred in the hospital parking lot, and not in the building complex.

The armed forces insist that the explosion was the result of a stray missile fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. Fighters from this splinter group are said to have fired ten rockets from a cemetery near the hospital just before the explosion.

The military believes the impact had a significant impact because the missile was still full of fuel.

Israel says it overheard a phone conversation that appeared to indicate that Hamas was aware that something had gone wrong with a projectile fired by Islamic Jihad. The Army has now posted this recording on X.

Since Hamas’ bloody invasion of Israel eleven days ago, of the thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli territory, about 450 have landed in the Strip, according to an army spokesman.

The spokesman accused Hamas of exaggerating the death toll, and also stated that the armed movement could not determine the cause of the explosion so quickly.

The Palestinian side said on Tuesday that five hundred people may have been killed. The authorities in Gaza now expect at least two hundred dead. There may still be people buried under the rubble of the hospital, where there were not only hundreds of patients, but also hundreds of Palestinians taking shelter from Israeli air strikes.

Peter van Amelrooy

Below is an overview of all known facts and reactions about the attack on the hospital in Gaza City.