Jerusalem: Shortly after arriving in Israel on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden said that the explosion that killed hundreds in a Gaza Strip hospital appeared to not 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 said during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, news agency AP reported. But Biden said 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 killing at least 500 people. The Israeli military denied involvement and blamed a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group. However, that organization also rejected responsibility.
Biden vowed to show the world that the U.S. stands in solidarity with Israelis during his visit even though he didn't offer details on why he believed the blast was not caused by the Israelis. Biden had been scheduled to visit Jordan after the stop in Israel, but meetings there with Arab leaders were called off after the hospital explosion. His remarks spoke both of the horrors the Israelis had endured and also the growing humanitarian crisis for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
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.” Biden spoke of the need to find ways of “encouraging life-saving capacity to help the Palestinians who are innocent, caught in the middle of this.”
But he also said Hamas had “slaughtered” Israelis in the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,400 people. Biden described at length the horror of the killing of innocent Israelis, including children. “Americans are grieving, they really are,” Biden said. “Americans are worried.” Netanyahu thanked Biden for coming to Israel, telling him the visit was “deeply, deeply moving."
