Biden, in Israel, says hospital blast appears to be caused by ‘the other team’

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, arrived in Israel on Wednesday, promising support in the country’s fight against Hamas and claiming that Israel’s enemies, not itself, looked to be to blame for the explosion that killed many Palestinians in a Gaza hospital.

The White House’s preparations for Biden’s emergency diplomatic journey to the Middle East were shattered when a Tuesday evening firestorm that consumed the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital forced Arab leaders to cancel their summit with him.

According to Palestinian officials, an Israeli air attack was what caused the explosion, which may have killed up to 500 people. Israel claimed that the Palestinian terrorist organization Islamic Jihad was responsible for the explosion after a botched missile launch, although the group rejected this.

During a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: “I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”

“But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot, we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” Biden stated.

“Everyone is watching. Israel shares the same values as the United States and other democracies, and they are interested in what we will do.

While demonstrating American support for Israel, a U.S. partner that has promised to destroy the Hamas movement whose members killed 1,400 Israelis in a massacre on October 7, Biden’s journey to the Middle East was intended to calm the area.

The second leg of Biden’s agenda, a meeting with the presidents of Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority in Amman, was canceled by Jordan due to the hospital explosion.

Netanyahu complimented Biden for his “unambiguous support.” God bless you for defending the nation of Israel, the head of state said Biden, according to President Isaac Herzog’s office.

Netanyahu stated that “Israel will do everything it can to keep civilians out of harm’s way” at a subsequent meeting. Biden said the United States would “continue to have Israel’s back as you work to defend your people.”

Help Us, Please!
Even by the standards of the previous 12 days, which have bombarded the world with nonstop pictures of Israelis killed in their homes and subsequently of Palestinian families buried beneath debris due to Israel’s retaliatory attacks, the stories of damage at the hospital were horrifying.

Searching through the blood-stained wreckage, rescuers looked for survivors. Israel rejected the health ministry’s estimate of 471 deaths and the death toll provided by the head of Gaza’s civil defense, which was 300. According to Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian ministry, rescuers are still collecting bodies.

“People came running into the surgery department screaming, ‘Help us, help us, there are people killed and wounded inside the hospital!'” stated Dr. Fadel Naim, head of the orthopedic surgery division at the hospital.

“The hospital was full of dead and wounded, dismembered bodies, and dead,” he told Reuters. We tried to save everyone who could be saved, but the number was too great for the hospital personnel to handle. We could have saved them since we saw them alive, but they were martyred instead.

Israel claimed that the lack of an impact crater from a missile or bomb proved it was not to blame for the explosion when it later revealed drone footage of its site.

According to the Israeli military, an audio clip of “communication between terrorists talking about rockets misfiring” was released.

Palestinians believed the explosion to be an Israeli strike because there was no warning for people to flee a hospital that hundreds of Gazans were using as a shelter after becoming homeless due to Israeli bombardment.

Ibrahim Al-Naqa, a different medical professional working at the hospital, told Reuters that “this place created a safe haven for women and children, those who escaped the Israeli bombing.” “We don’t know what the shell is called but we saw the results of it when it targeted children and ripped their bodies into pieces.”

THE COOL HEADS
Other Western officials also urged caution following Biden’s assertion that Israel was not at fault. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly wrote on X, “Last night, too many jumped to conclusions around the tragic loss of life at Al Ahli hospital.” “Getting it wrong would endanger even more lives. Await the facts, then properly report them. Cooler heads must rule.

World leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, condemned the explosion in remarks but avoided blaming anybody.

The explosion sparked fresh rage throughout the Middle East.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and one of the Arab leaders who canceled their meeting with Biden, was in Ramallah, a city in the West Bank when Palestinian security forces used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse anti-government protestors.

The Hezbollah organization, which Iran supports, and Israel’s border confrontations during the last week have been the bloodiest since the last all-out war in 2006, prompting the U.S. State Department to caution Americans not to visit Lebanon.

Since the assaults on October 7, Biden has been a fervent supporter of Israel. However, Netanyahu is under tremendous pressure to get a firm Israeli commitment to ease the suffering of Gaza Strip residents, where 2.3 million Palestinians are completely cut off from food, gasoline, water, and medical supplies.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military declared a “humanitarian zone” in Al-Mawasi, a town on the southern Gaza Strip coast close to the Egyptian border, where supplies would be available. How assistance would get there was not specified.