Al-Ahli Arab hospital blast: US intelligence report estimates death toll to be 100 to 300

The US intelligence community has estimated there were likely 100 to 300 people killed in the blast at the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, but added that the assessment may evolve, according to excerpts of a document seen on Thursday by several media outlets.

The number is lower than the 471 deaths that health authorities in the Hamas-ruled enclave originally described.

An unclassified US intelligence assessment, provided to the AFP news agency by a Capitol Hill source, estimates the number of people killed at the hospital on Tuesday night at the “low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum.”

“We are still assessing the likely casualty figures and our assessment may evolve, but this death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life,” the document said.

“The United States takes seriously the deaths of all civilians, and is working intensively to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” the document said.

The blast occurred at around 1700 GMT Tuesday and Gaza officials have said at least 471 people were killed in the explosion, with more than 300 wounded.

Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike for the killings, while the Israeli army has blamed a misfired rocket from another Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, which also denied it was responsible.

According to the US intelligence document, “Israel probably did not bomb [the] Gaza Strip hospital,” and the United States is continuing “to work to corroborate whether the explosion resulted from a failed PIJ [Palestine Islamic Jihad] rocket.”

The document also says there was “only light structural damage at the hospital,” with “no observable damage to the main hospital building and no impact craters.”

AFP correspondents at the scene saw dozens of bodies, with medics and civilians recovering bodies wrapped in white cloth, blankets or black plastic bags. Bloodstains and torched cars could be seen in the hospital courtyard.

Images of the hospital after the explosion published by the Maxar satellite monitoring group show the hospital buildings mainly appeared to be intact.

Gaza has been hit by a relentless barrage of Israeli fire in retaliation for a Hamas militant attack on 7 October, which Israel says killed at least 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

Israeli bombing since has killed at least 3,785 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas health ministry.

Tens of thousands of families have sought refuge from the bombardment in and around Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters