Biden says explosion at a Gaza hospital appears to not have been caused by Israel
The US president, who is visiting Israel on Wednesday, said the explosion that killed hundreds appeared to have been done 'by the other team, not you'.
US President Joe Biden touched down in Israel on Wednesday, October 18, for a diplomatic scramble to prevent the war with Hamas from spiraling into an even larger conflict, a challenge that became more difficult as outrage swept through the Middle East over an explosion that killed hundreds in a Gaza Strip hospital.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Biden at Ben Gurion Airport and they embraced before speeding away for hours of meetings. During their meeting, the US president told Netanyahu that "Americans are grieving with you."
He continued by saying that the explosion that killed hundreds in the Gaza Strip hospital appeared not to have been caused by Israel. "Based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you," Biden told Netanyahu. He added that there were "a lot of people out there" who weren't sure what caused the blast. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike caused the destruction. The Israeli military denied involvement and blamed the misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group. They also rejected responsibility.
"We have to bear in mind that Hamas does not represent all the Palestinian people and has brought them only suffering," Biden said. The US president said he was encouraging Netanyahu to ensure "life-saving capacity to help the Palestinians who are innocent and caught in the middle of this." In announcing Biden's visit, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel had agreed to work with the United States on a plan to let aid into Gaza, which has been besieged and bombarded for 12 days and under an Israeli blockade for 17 years.
Hamas and Israel trade blame
The Israeli military held a briefing Wednesday morning laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the hospital. It was not firing in the area, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. Instead, Hagari said, Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage fired by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery at that time of the blast, around 6:59 pm. Independent video showed one of the rockets in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said. The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rocket’s warhead and its unspent propellant, he said.
The Israeli military also released a recording they said was between two Hamas militants discussing the blast, during which the speakers say it was believed to be an Islamic Jihad misfire and that the shrapnel appeared to be from IJ weapons, not Israel's. Hagari said Israeli's intelligence would be shared with US and British officials. He also questioned the death toll provided by Gaza's Hamas-led health ministry. Since the war began, roughly 450 rockets fired at Israel by militant groups had landed in Gaza, the military said.
Hamas called Tuesday's hospital blast "a horrific massacre," saying it was caused by an Israeli strike. Islamic Jihad dismissed Israel’s claims, accusing Israel of "trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed." The group pointed to Israel's order that the hospital be evacuated and reports of a previous blast at the hospital as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target. It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bomb's fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel.
Roughly 2,800 Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. Another 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said. Those numbers predate the explosion at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital.
Protests
In the meantime, protests swept through the region after the deaths at the hospital, which had been treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many more who were seeking refuge from the fighting. Hundreds of Palestinians flooded the streets of major West Bank cities including Ramallah. More people joined protests that erupted in Beirut, Lebanon and Amman, Jordan, where an angry crowd gathered outside the Israeli Embassy.
Biden was originally scheduled to visit Jordan after Israel, but Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi announced that the planned four-way summit with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Egypt's president was off. It would be held "when the decision to stop the war and put an end to these massacres has been taken," said Ayman Safadi. Shortly afterward the White House confirmed Biden "will postpone his travel to Jordan," saying he took the decision "after consulting with King Abdullah II of Jordan and in light of the days of mourning announced by President Abbas."
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned Wednesday of the dangers of "forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt", saying it would set a precedent for "the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan". Sisi, who has rejected calls to allow large numbers of refugees from Gaza into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, said the goal of "the Palestinian state" would be "eradicated".