An Israeli air strike has killed hundreds of people at a Gaza City hospital, health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave say, and the United Nation says an Israeli strike also hit one of its schools being used as a shelter.
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A Gaza civil defence chief said on al-Jazeera television that more than 300 people were killed at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital.
A Gaza Health Ministry official said at least 500 people were killed and injured.
Both departments are under the Hamas-run government.
Israel's military denied responsibility for the attack, saying military intelligence suggested the hospital was hit by a failed rocket launch by the enclave's Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group.
"An analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit," a representative for the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
"Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza."
Earlier on Tuesday, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said an Israeli air strike had killed at least six people after striking one of its schools that has been functioning as a shelter for displaced people.
Health authorities in Gaza say at least 3000 people have been killed in Israel's intense 11-day bombardment since Hamas militants rampaged into Israeli towns on October 7.
Hamas said the blast at the hospital mostly killed displaced people.
A senior official for the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority, which operates in the West Bank but not in Gaza, described it as a massacre.
Earlier on Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Israel to show solidarity with the country following attacks from Hamas.
US President Joe Biden is also set to visit Israel on Wednesday.
Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that controls Gaza after Hamas gunmen killed 1300 people, mainly civilians, during a rampage through southern Israeli towns on October 7 - the deadliest single day in Israel's 75-year history.
Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, halting food, fuel and medical supplies, which are rapidly running out.
Scores of trucks carrying vital supplies for Gaza headed towards the Rafah crossing in Egypt on Tuesday, the only access point to the coastal enclave outside Israel's control, but there was no clear indication that they would be able to enter.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says "Germany stands firmly by Israel's side" on a visit to Tel Aviv.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Biden's planned visit at the end of hours of talks with Netanyahu, in which he said Netanyahu had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians.
He gave no details.
Biden will "hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people" when he visits on Wednesday, Blinken said.
He will also hear how Israel will carry out operations in a way that minimises civilian casualties and lets humanitarian aid into Gaza to help civilians "in a way that does not benefit Hamas".
After Israel, Biden is expected to travel to Jordan to meet King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
He will also expected to meet Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, which exerts limited self rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007.
But a senior Palestinian official said Abbas had cancelled the planned meeting with Biden following the attack on the Gaza hospital.
Scholz said on Tuesday that "Germany stands firmly by Israel's side," in a post on X.
He is expected to hold talks with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv during his visit and will then fly on to Egypt to meet Sissi.
US President Joe Biden might be the third head of government to visit Israel since a Hamas attack.
Scholz is also set to meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog and the relatives of hostages taken by Hamas, among whom are several German citizens.
The German chancellor is the second head of government to visit the country since the Hamas attack 10 days ago, after Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu arrived in Israel earlier on Tuesday.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said only about 14 per cent of Gazans had access to water through a single pipe to Khan Younis that Israel allowed to open for three hours on Monday.
Concerns about dehydration and diseases were high as water and sanitation services had collapsed.
"People will start dying without water," UNRWA said.
Israel says 199 hostages were taken to Gaza during the militants' raid.
Hamas released a video of one French-Israeli hostage, Maya Schem, calling on world leaders to help her and other captives get home.
with DPA
Australian Associated Press