Updates | Cease-fire pleas and Israel-Hamas recriminations rise in wake of Gaza hospital blast

The blood of his relatives and friends splattered the stone walls, he said.He and his family, including several cousins, had gone to the hospital from the Zeytoun neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, thinking it would be a safe place to find refuge.No one knows anyone, al-Hayek said, referring to the difficulty of identifying the victims.

President Joe Biden is in Israel on an urgent mission to keep the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a broader regional conflict and to encourage the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

The president's visit on Wednesday came after hundreds of people were reported killed in an explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital the night before.

The Hamas militant group blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by members of another Palestinian militant group.

The war that began October 7 has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in the past 11 days.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Currently: 1. Doctors in Gaza City performed surgery on floors, often without anaesthesia, in a desperate bid to save badly wounded victims of a massive blast that killed civilians sheltering in a hospital.

Video that The Associated Press confirmed was from the hospital showed the grounds strewn with torn bodies, blankets and school backpacks.

2. Rage at the hospital carnage spread through the Middle East. Protesters hurled stones at Palestinian security forces in the occupied West Bank and at riot police in neighboring Jordan, venting fury at their own leaders for failing to protect Palestinians. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called off a planned summit with Biden.

3. The UN Security Council is scheduled to vote on a resolution about the fighting between Hamas and Israel, but negotiations on the wording were still underway.

4. Israel says at least 199 people taken during the Hamas attack are being held captive in Gaza.

They range from babies to the elderly. Most are civilians. Some of their families received frantic phone calls or texts during the attack. Others heard nothing and later saw video evidence their loved ones were taken.

Here's what's happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war: DEATH TOLL FROM GAZA HOSPITAL EXPLOSION UNCLEAR The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry revised the death toll from an explosion at a Gaza City hospital down from 500 to 471 on Wednesday but did not elaborate on how authorities reached that figure.

Staff members at al-Ahli Hospital said they could not gauge the toll because the blast had dismembered so many bodies.

Hospital director Suhaila Tarazi and Episcopal Church officials that run al-Ahli could only estimate that the toll was “in the hundreds” and refrained from giving an exact number.

Mohammed Abu Selmia, general director of Shifa Hospital where all the wounded and dead were transferred following the explosion, told The Associated Press early Wednesday he believed the death toll was closer to 250, with hundreds more wounded.

SURVIVOR RECOUNTS FRIENDS TORN TO PIECES BY BLAST AT GAZA HOSPITAL A displaced Gaza resident says he was wounded and not killed by a blast at a hospital because he had gone to fetch coffee for a group of men with whom he'd been sitting on a staircase.

“When I returned, they were torn to pieces,” Mohammed al-Hayek, wearing a head cloth covering one injured eye, said. The blood of his relatives and friends splattered the stone walls, he said.

He and his family, including several cousins, had gone to the hospital from the Zeytoun neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, thinking it would be a safe place to find refuge.

''No one knows anyone,” al-Hayek said, referring to the difficulty of identifying the victims. “They became pieces, all of those poor people, civilian citizens.” UK LEADER URGES LAWMAKERS NOT TO RUSH TO JUDGEMENT ON HOSPITAL BLAST British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says UK intelligence services are “rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts” behind the devastating explosion at a Gaza hospital.

Sunak urged lawmakers in the House of Commons not to “rush to judgment” about the blast at the al-Ahli hospital, which Hamas blames on Israel and Israel blames on Palestinian militants.

Calling it an “awful situation,” Sunak said: “Every member will know that the words we say here have an impact beyond this House.” He added: “The Israeli president has made it very clear that their armed forces will operate in accordance with international law, and we will continue to urge the Israelis to take every precaution to avoid harming civilians.”

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)