The administrator of a hospital in the Gaza Strip that was rocked by a deadly explosion on Tuesday night has said that the Israeli military repeatedly warned the hospital’s management in recent days to evacuate the site.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said that the explosion, at the Ahli Arab Hospital, killed hundreds of civilians and was caused by an Israeli airstrike. Israel said it had not been firing in the area and instead blamed a misfired Palestinian rocket, which hurtled to earth shortly after launch. US officials agree the evidence points to a misfired Palestinian rocket.

Still, the repeated warnings from Israel before the strike can be expected to fuel anger in Arab countries among people who are convinced Israel was to blame, a feeling that has driven protests across the region.

On Wednesday, the Anglican archbishop who oversees the hospital said that the Israeli military had called and texted the hospital managers at least three times since Saturday, asking its patients and staff to leave the hospital compound, along with the displaced Gaza residents who had crowded onto the grounds because they considered it relatively safe from aerial bombardment.

Archbishop Hosam Naoum, head of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and West Asia, which runs the hospital, said in a news briefing on Wednesday that in recent days, large numbers of Gazans — 5,000 at their peak — had taken shelter at the hospital site to escape Israeli airstrikes.

Naoum said the warnings were particular to the hospital and not part of Israel’s wider push to encourage civilians to leave northern Gaza.

“There were specific warnings to get out of the building,” the archbishop said.

Lieutenant Colonel Amnon Shefler, a military spokesperson, said the calls to the hospital were part of a wider campaign to urge all civilians to leave northern Gaza, in order to make it easier for Israel to conduct ground operations there.

“It was part of the general moving of the population,” Shefler said, adding that the hospital was not a target for the military.

The archbishop said the warnings came after a smaller strike at the hospital on Saturday that had damaged its diagnostic centre and its ultrasound and mammography units.

New York Times News Service