Pieces of twisted metal shrapnel – some of it apparently from the missile itself – scattered across a 200m (656ft) area in and around the hospital complex. Vehicles carrying medical staff lined the road outside – an emergency response to a situation that many had feared would be worse.

Crowds of soldiers, police and rescue teams milled around the hospital entrances, as a stream of ministers arrived to express their outrage at the strike. Alon Uzi was wandering around outside the hospital entrance with two bags of belongings. He said he had been receiving treatment in the emergency department when the attack happened, and didn't have time to reach the shelter. "I was lying in bed, and I heard a big boom," he told us. "And before I could do anything, there was an explosion and part of the ceiling fell and I was covered with white dust.

"There was no time to get out of bed. I was just getting ready and then I heard a whistling noise." Inside the emergency reception area, the air carried the tang of chemicals mixed with dust. Patients were still being evacuated on stretchers from deep inside the building, as emergency teams passed through into the surgical wards that were hit. Medical staff told local media that patients there had recently been moved to the hospital's emergency shelters underground. Seventy-one people have been injured, according to Israel's ministry of health. (BBC)