President Biden landed in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday morning, where he was greeted with a hug by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Biden was due to meet with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to show his support amid Israel’s war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and his initial comments were a clear demonstration of that support, as he criticized Israel’s strong denial of responsibility for a deadly explosion assisted in a hospital in the Gaza Strip.
A second diplomatic stop in which Mr. Biden was scheduled to meet with Arab leaders in Jordan was canceled after Tuesday’s massive hospital explosion in Gaza City, which officials said killed at least 500 people in the Hamas-controlled territory.
The White House had intended Mr. Biden’s visit to demonstrate the firm U.S. commitment to Israel’s right to self-defense and to try to contain rapidly escalating tensions in the region and prevent an expansion of the war, but the hospital explosion – which Palestinian leaders and neighbors Arab nations quickly blamed Israel – making an already difficult diplomatic mission much more difficult for the veteran statesman.
The Israeli military has vehemently denied responsibility for the hospital explosion, blaming it on a rocket fired by Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza that it said missed and hit a parking lot next to the hospital. The US government has not given its own formal assessment of the evidence of the explosion, but Mr Biden told Mr Netanyahu: “Based on what I have seen, it appears that the act was committed by the other team.”
President Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 18, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel. EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/Portal
News of the explosion sparked angry demonstrations across the Arab world and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday evening.
Mr. Biden’s visit follows a grueling five-day, 10-stop trip to the Middle East by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Israel’s war cabinet for seven hours on Monday “to try to work on a framework” for humanitarian assistance to include Gaza, John Kirby of the National Security Council told CBS News.
Relentless Israeli airstrikes and the complete blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel after Hamas’ brutal terrorist attack on October 7 have forced about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents from their homes and created a humanitarian crisis in terms of food, fuel and water are running desperately close. Palestinian officials said on Tuesday that the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip had killed about 3,000 people and injured about 12,500 others, most of them women and children.
In Israel, officials say around 1,400 people were killed and 3,500 others were injured in the Hamas attack. Hamas is said to be holding almost 200 hostages. Thirteen US citizens remain missing.
At least 31 US citizens are among the dead in Israel and up to 600 US citizens are believed to be among the hundreds of thousands of people trapped in Gaza.