Hundreds of people have attended a vigil outside Downing Street for victims of a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital.
It came after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for a “calm and cool” response to the explosion, as intelligence services review evidence of who was behind it.
Hamas has blamed Israel for the blast, which killed hundreds of civilians, while the Israeli military said the hospital was hit by a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants.
Amid heavy rain on Wednesday evening, protesters gathered in Westminster holding signs that read “stop the massacre” and “stop bombing Gaza”.
They also chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
Prayers were then held in Arabic, with attendees laying out plastic sheets on the ground to pray on.
There were around 800 people there in total, leading to road closures by police due to the overwhelming turnout, our correspondent Amelia Harper reported from the scene.
There has been widespread condemnation of the explosion at the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital, where hundreds of Palestinians were seeking shelter from a siege launched in retaliation to Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October.
The blast has sparked protests across the Middle East, including angry scenes in the Lebanese capital Beirut where hundreds of demonstrators clashed with security forces near the US embassy.
The Hezbollah group, a key ally of Hamas, held its own rally on Wednesday in the city.
The Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to “leave now while commercial options remain available”.
“The situation has potential to deteriorate quickly and with no warning,” the department said.
PM: ‘calm and cool response’ needed to strike
Earlier, Mr Sunak urged MPs not to “rush to judgement” as Israel and Hamas issued the rival claims about what happened.
Visiting Tel Aviv amid the escalating conflict, US President Joe Biden sided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telling him it “appears as though it was done by the other team, not you”.
But Mr Sunak – who held talks with the UK’s national security adviser and the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee on Wednesday morning – said he would not “rush to judgement before we have all the facts on this awful situation”.
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At Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, he said: “Our intelligence services have been rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts. We are not in a position at this point to say more than that.”
The vigil was held outside Downing Street
During a visit to Essex on Wednesday afternoon, the prime minister added that the “very heightened, sensitive situation” demanded “calm heads”.
“This is obviously a complicated situation on the ground but it is right that we approach it with a calm and cool manner, don’t rush to premature judgements, take the time to understand what’s happened, that’s what we’re doing,” he said.
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What do hospital blast images tell us?
On the difference in position with America, the UK’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said ministers “take note” of what President Biden has said, “but we will come to our own judgement”.
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He said a UK assessment of what happened will be made public “as soon as we are confident of the details”.
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Moment Gaza hospital explodes
The strike on the hospital has led to heightened calls for a humanitarian ceasefire – though this is something Mr Sunak refused to endorse when he addressed MPs at PMQs.
A spokesperson for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also dismissed the calls, telling reporters that Israel had a “right to defend itself” and to do what was needed to recover the 199 hostages it says are being held captive in Gaza.
More than 40 MPs from across the divide have signed a motion supporting a ceasefire so that the release of hostages could be secured, international law could be upheld and medical supplies, food, fuel, electricity and water could get into Gaza.
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The motion said parliament “utterly condemns the massacre of Israeli civilians and taking of hostages by Hamas” but that it agrees with the UN that “these horrific acts do not justify responding with the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.
Mr Sunak said Israel “has a right to defend itself” and the UK was continuing to press to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and was “working around the clock” to free British hostages taken by Hamas.
At least seven British nationals, including 13-year-old Yahel Sharabi, were killed in the Hamas raids on Israel on 7 October.
Downing Street said that nine UK nationals remain missing, with some of those feared dead, while others could be among the hostages taken back to the Gaza Strip.
