US President Joe Biden (l) listens to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting of the Israeli War Cabinet in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023 (AFP / Brendan SMIALOWSKI)
American President Joe Biden on Wednesday exonerated Israel after the deadly attack on a Gaza hospital that sparked a wave of revolt across the Middle East, getting the green light for humanitarian aid to Gaza from his ally battered by an unprecedented attack.
Mr. Biden personally came to support Israel, which was bloodily attacked by the Palestinian Hamas on October 7, and adopted the Israeli army’s version of that attack, which blames Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian organization.
“Based on the information we have so far, it appears that (the attack) was the result of an out-of-control missile fired by a terrorist group in Gaza,” said Joe Biden, who claims to have evidence from the Pentagon .
Hamas, the Islamist movement in power in Gaza, accused Israel of being the perpetrator of the attack, as did Iran and many Arab countries, where thousands of protesters took to the streets to denounce “Zionist crimes.”
Speaking to the press, the American president also pointed out that Israel had given the green light for humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip, responding to the request of the American authorities and the international community.
– “Food, water and medicine” –
“Israel will not prevent humanitarian assistance from Egypt as long as it involves food, water and medicine for the civilian population in the south of the Gaza Strip,” an Israeli ministry statement subsequently confirmed. Office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, Israel imposed one condition. This aid will not pass through its territory until the hostages held by the Palestinian Hamas are released. According to Israel, the Palestinian movement is holding between 200 and 250 hostages, and at least 199.
Their release is an “absolute priority,” said the American president.
On the day of the attack, more than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians. This was the deadliest attack on Israel since its founding in 1948.
In retaliation, Israel is relentlessly bombing the small, overpopulated Gaza area, where at least 3,478 people have been killed, the majority Palestinian civilians, according to local authorities, who do not specify whether that figure also takes into account those of victims at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.
– “More tragedy” –
A Palestinian in the rubble of his house bombed by the Israeli army in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, October 18, 2023 (AFP / SAID KHATIB)
Joe Biden assured that he would work with Israel to prevent “further tragedies” for civilians on the twelfth day of the war and while the situation in the Gaza Strip is “out of control,” according to the World Health Organization.
The United States on Wednesday vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause,” with Washington castigating a text that failed to mention Israel’s “right to self-defense.”
Dozens of trucks full of international aid have been waiting in Egypt for days to return to Gaza at the Rafah border crossing, the only one not controlled by Israel, but which was still closed on Wednesday evening.
Joe Biden reiterated that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, with whom he had just spoken, had “agreed” to allow “up to 20 trucks to cross,” but that this assistance was unlikely to arrive before Friday due to the pending work Street destroyed by Israeli bombing.
Egypt announced on Thursday the “sustainable” passage of humanitarian aid via Rafah.
That aid must be “significant,” on the order of 100 trucks a day, and must be safe, Martin Griffiths, head of the United Nations’ humanitarian emergencies division, said on Wednesday.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced he would visit Israel and several other regional capitals on Thursday to insist on the release of humanitarian aid and prevent an escalation of the war.
– “Proofs” –
Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Tel Aviv Airport on October 18, 2023 (AFP / Brendan SMIALOWSKI)
The Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million residents, who also have no electricity, are lacking water and food after Israel has laid siege since October 9 to the small 362 km2 area, which is already poor and cramped with land and sea – and air shortages have been a blockade since Hamas came to power in 2007.
Tuesday evening’s attack on the Ahli Arab Hospital in the center of the Gaza Strip killed at least 471 people who had sought refuge on the facility’s premises due to the conflict, according to the Palestinian territory’s Ministry of Health. But probably much less, emphasized a senior European intelligence official.
Near the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, destroyed by a strike the day before, October 18, 2023 (AFP / -)
“There are not 200 or even 500 dead, but a few dozen, probably between 10 and 50,” this source said on condition of anonymity, also assuming that “Israel probably did not do this,” according to the “severe Hints”. ” of information available to its services.
Israel, in turn, claimed on Wednesday that it had “evidence” of Islamic Jihad’s responsibility for the attack on the hospital.
“The evidence we are sharing with all of you confirms that the explosion at a hospital in Gaza was caused by the firing of a failed Islamic Jihad rocket,” army spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
– “Giant Fireball” –
Map of Gaza City with location of Al-Ahli Hospital (AFP / Sophie RAMIS)
According to Islamic Jihad, a Hamas-aligned group that is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, it was a bomb dropped by an Israeli army plane that caused the tragedy.
In a video authenticated by AFP, we see flames rising from what appears to be the courtyard of a building at night. At Ahli Arab Hospital on Wednesday, an AFP photographer saw charred vehicles, debris on the ground and a destroyed ambulance bearing the hospital’s name.
“I saw a huge fireball, the whole place was on fire, bodies were thrown everywhere, children, women and elderly people,” said Adnan al-Nagah, 37, who had sought refuge in hospital with his family and narrowly escaped death.
Maps showing the population density of the Gaza Strip in 2000 and 2020 (AFP / Julia Han JANICKI)
Thousands of people demonstrated on Wednesday in support of Palestinians in Cairo, near the Israeli embassy in Amman and in Tunis in front of the French embassy, one of the countries accused of being “allies of the Zionists” in this war.
Palestinians also demonstrated in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, chanting “Liberate, liberate Palestine.”
Tensions are also high on the border with Lebanon, where there are daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah, and in the West Bank, where at least 61 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, according to local authorities.