FirstFT: Israel and Hamas trade blame over Gaza hospital blast with hundreds feared dead

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Hundreds of people are feared dead after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza yesterday for which the Palestinians and Israel blamed each other.

The Hamas-controlled health ministry said at least 200 people were killed in what it said was an Israeli strike on Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City. The Palestine Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian organisation, said “hundreds” of people had been killed.

That would make it the deadliest incident in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive on the strip in response to a deadly October 7 attack by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.

The Israel Defense Forces said its intelligence indicated that the explosion was caused by a misfired rocket launched by Islamic Jihad, a smaller Islamist militant group also based in Gaza.

It was not possible to independently verify the cause of the explosion or the death toll.

The incident will cast a cloud over Joe Biden’s trip to Israel today to show solidarity with the Jewish state, as well as to push for the delivery of aid into Gaza. Jordan cancelled a summit at which Biden was to meet the Jordanian and Egyptian leaders, as well as Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, a Jordanian official said.

In a statement issued while he was flying to Israel, the US president said he was “deeply saddened” by the “explosion” at the hospital, and he had asked his national security team to “continue gathering information about what exactly happened”.

“The United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life during conflict and we mourn the patients, medical staff and other innocents killed or wounded in this tragedy,” Biden said. He did not attribute the incident to either side of the conflict. Here’s the full story.

• Biden’s gambit: After the deadly hospital blast, the US president’s whirlwind Middle East trip to help stop the war from spreading could backfire.

• Opinion: A human catastrophe will follow unless hostilities are suspended for the UN to provide help, writes the organisation’s senior humanitarian officials.

• Letter to the FT: Eight legal figures including a former president of the UK’s Supreme Court have raised “significant concern” over Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Read their full letter, which they said they wrote as Jews and as lawyers.

• UK politics: Sir Keir Starmer is facing a growing mutiny from Labour councillors who have demanded the party change its position to condemn Israel over the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We’ve also launched a dedicated WhatsApp channel to bring you daily updates on the war. Sign up here.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: The EU and the UK have their consumer price indices. Britain’s Office for National Statistics also releases its house price index, while the US Federal Reserve publishes its Beige Book on economic conditions.

• Austria: Former chancellor Sebastian Kurz goes on trial for allegedly giving false testimony to parliament. He denies any wrongdoing.

• Companies: ASML, Morgan Stanley, Nasdaq, Netflix, Procter & Gamble, Tesla, Volvo and Whitbread are among those reporting results. Property developer Barratt Developments will hold its annual meeting while miner BHP Group has its operational review.

The first issue of our Central Banks newsletter by Chris Giles launched yesterday — read it here. Next Wednesday, he will be joined by other FT experts including Martin Sandbu and Colby Smith as they discuss rate-setters’ ability to forecast and control inflation. Sign up here for free.

Five more top stories

1. Ukraine has used long-range US-made missiles for the first time to strike Russian forces deep inside occupied territory, Kyiv and US officials have said. The ATACMS, or army tactical missile system, was manufactured by Lockheed Martin and secretly shipped to Ukraine. Kremlin bloggers have called the strike one of the most damaging on their forces. Here are the targets hit by the missiles.

• War in Ukraine: Western support for Israel’s assault on Gaza has poisoned efforts to build consensus with significant developing countries on condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine, officials and diplomats have warned.

• More Russia: Hungary’s Viktor Orbán became the first western leader to meet Vladimir Putin since the International Criminal Court indicted the Russian president for alleged war crimes.

2. Exclusive: Greece’s top central banker has warned that the Israel-Hamas war is creating new challenges for Europe’s economy, from energy market disruption to an influx of refugees. Ahead of a European Central Bank meeting in Athens, Yannis Stournaras said the conflict had shifted the balance against any further tightening of monetary policy. Read his full interview with the FT.

3. Exclusive: Carrefour is locked in a legal battle with a Chinese conglomerate over payment for a deal to acquire the French retailer’s outlets in China, which are in crisis after the pandemic gutted the business in the country. Alibaba-backed Suning has been ordered by a Hong Kong court to pay Carrefour more than Rmb1bn ($134mn) for the stores. Read the full story.

4. KPMG is set to announce new fresh job cuts in the UK and freeze pay for its deal advisory staff, affecting about 110 people or close to 7 per cent of its UK deals business. The redundancy consultation was a last resort after other steps such as reallocating staff to divisions with more work, said a person familiar with the matter. Here’s why the Big Four firm is making the move.

• More Big Four: Tim Ryan’s decision to drop out of a race to lead PwC followed intense internal debate over whether the US senior partner’s “hard-charging” management style was suited to the role of global chair.

5. Short-term Treasury yields jumped to their highest level in 17 years yesterday after stronger than expected US retail sales data fanned investors’ fears that the Federal Reserve could lift borrowing costs further in its fight against inflation. It ended a period of respite for bonds over the past week as the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas spurred demand for safe assets such as Treasuries. Here’s more on the renewed sell-off.

The Big Read

Javier Milei, a 52-year-old libertarian economist with an outsize television personality and a minimal political career, has taken swaths of Argentina by storm. Despite an eccentric personality that has included turns as a tantric sex guru and cosplay enthusiast, polls make him the narrow favourite to win the presidency. What might the radical outsider do in office?

We’re also reading . . . 

• US foreign policy: Wars in Europe and the Middle East are slowing America’s vaunted pivot to Asia, writes Janan Ganesh.

• Israel-Hamas war: Iran is positioning itself to benefit from the conflict, but there is a chance that Tehran has over-reached, writes the Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney.

• European airlines: Deals among Europe’s three biggest long-haul carriers could transform the region’s fragmented sector to a more consolidated market similar to that of the US.

• South Africa: President Cyril Ramaphosa is trying to revive Transnet, an ailing monopoly that manages 20,000km of railway across the country.

Chart of the day

“The world is on fire.” With the heat of 2023, these opening words in a G20 report released last week are more than figurative, writes Martin Wolf. We are fast running out of time to solve today’s big challenges — here’s how we might finance a faster shift to a better world.

Take a break from the news

Former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown made her mark as one of the most famous, and most feared, journalists of the 1980s and 1990s. In an interview with the FT, Brown reflects on magazines, sexism (she was once called “Stalin in high heels”) and why investigative journalism must be supported. Explore the rest of our Women in Business series here.

Additional contributions from Benjamin Wilhelm and Gordon Smith