The Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion occurred on 17 October 2023 when a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket launch targeting Haifa failed, resulting in missile fragments landing on a Christian-run hospital in Gaza and killing 471 people and injuring 314.
The al-Ahli Arab Hospital, founded by the Church of England in 1882 and run by Baptists from 1954 to 1982, was funded by the Episcopal Church and the European Union, using 80 beds to serve the people of the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinian refugees from the northern Gaza Strip sought shelter at the hospital to avoid Israeli airstrikes on Hamas, and the hospital was damaged by Israeli rocket fire on 14 October, leaving four staff members injured. Before the rocket fire, the hospital sheltered 6,000 people, but this number was reduced to 1,000 after the rocket attack caused most refugees to flee. On 16 October, Israel ordered at least 20 hospitals in Gaza, including the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, to evacuate. However, the hospital staff were unable to transport patients such as incubated newborns and patients on ventilators, and insufficient beds at hospitals already over capacity in the Gaza Strip made an evacuation an impossibility; by then, Israel had attacked 51 health facilities in Gaza. At 7:20 PM on 17 October 2023, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket targeting Haifa exploded mid-air, perhaps after being intercepted by Israeli air defense systems, causing the warhead to fall onto the hospital. 471 civilians were killed and 314 wounded. Pro-Palestinian media, along with Doctors Without Borders, reported that the Israeli Air Force was responsible for the attack, and Hezbollah called for a "day of rage" on 18 October against Israel and President Joe Biden's pending visit to the Middle East, while Iran vowed a "harsh response" to what happened. Anti-Semitic protests broke out in Canada, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Yemen, while Palestinians rioted against President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, accusing him of inaction in the face of Israeli attacks on Gaza. While world leaders and even the African Union prematurely blamed the attack on Israel, independent open-source intelligence groups provided geolocation proof that the explosion was caused by a misfired rocket, as the blast zone was inconsistent with that of an airstrike, the explosion footage was similar to that of a rocket motor failure, and oil trails were present at the site, evidencing a rocket's role in the attack. Israeli president Isaac Herzog called slanderous accusations against Israel "21st-century 'blood libel'."