During his visit to Israel, US President Joe Biden showed US solidarity with Israelis and opined that the deadly blast in the Gaza Strip hospital was obviously not carried out by the Israeli military.
Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting:
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”
However, Biden said that “many” people do not yet know exactly what caused the blast. He gave no explanation as to why he thought the blast was not the fault of the Israelis. Gaza’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike was the cause of the blast and the hundreds of deaths. The Israeli military denied involvement and blamed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for the missile that was wrongly fired. However, that organisation has also denied responsibility.
After his visit to Israel, Biden was supposed to visit Jordan, but meetings with Arab leaders were cancelled after the horrific shelling of a hospital. In his speech, he spoke not only about the horrors experienced by Israelis, but also about the growing humanitarian crisis for Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. He told Netanyahu he was “deeply saddened and outraged” by the hospital explosion. He stressed that “Hamas does not represent all the Palestinian people. And it has brought them only suffering.”
In his speech, Biden stressed the need to find ways to “stimulate vital capacity to help Palestinians who are innocent and caught in the middle.” But he also said that Hamas “annihilated” Israelis in the 7 October terrorist attack that killed 1,400 people. Biden detailed the horror of killing Israeli civilians and their children. He said:
“Americans are grieving, they really are. Americans are worried.”
Biden plans to meet with Israeli rescuers, families of the victims and hostages. Netanyahu met Biden at Ben-Gurion Airport. Almost exactly a month ago, they spoke together at the UN General Assembly, where Netanyahu marvelled that a “historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia” seemed within reach.
The possibility of improved relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours seems to be disappearing with every minute and every explosion in the Middle East. Israel is preparing for a possible ground invasion of Gaza in response to Hamas attacks.
Israeli strikes have killed some 2,800 Palestinians in Gaza. Another 1,200 are buried under the rubble, dead or alive, according to health authorities. These figures predate Tuesday’s explosion at Al-Ahli hospital. The cause of the explosion has not been officially established.
