US backs Israel in blaming Islamists for Gaza hospital strike

AFP | Tel Aviv                                         

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

US President Joe Biden on a visit to Israel Wednesday backed his ally's stance blaming Islamist Palestinian militants for a rocket strike on a hospital that killed hundreds in war-torn Gaza and has inflamed anger across the Middle East.

Arab countries have blamed Israel, which has rained bombs on Gaza since the bloody October 7 attack by Hamas -- but Biden voiced support for Israel's position that a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket had hit the Ahli Arab Hospital.

"I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday," Biden said at a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the morning after the blast that killed 200 to 300 people according to Gaza authorities.

"And, based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you," said the US president, referring to the armed movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

"But there's a lot of people out there not sure, so we have to overcome a lot of things," Biden added after the first protests erupted against Israel and the United States, with more expected across the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Biden has expressed "iron-clad" US support for top regional ally Israel and its military campaign -- retaliation for the killing of 1,400 people who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death in the shock cross-border attacks launched by Hamas.

But the horror of the hospital deaths threatened to derail his high-stakes regional visit, with Jordan cancelling a summit between King Abdullah II, Biden, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Israel's military campaign to destroy Hamas, which is holding 199 hostages in the besieged territory, had already left at least 3,000 dead inside Gaza before the hospital was destroyed.

Arab countries have almost universally blamed Israel for the hospital attack, either directly or through state media -- including Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, which are among the region's few countries Israel has diplomatic relations with.

- 'Bloodshed must stop' -

In besieged Gaza, the hospital blast brought new horrors after 12 days of sustained bombardment that Israel says targets Hamas and which has destroyed entire city blocks.

More than a million people have been displaced ahead of a possible Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.

Overnight, after the explosion, scores of bodies cloaked in blood-stained sheets and white plastic lined the floors at the nearby the Al-Shifa hospital, where stunned and bereaved relatives tried to identify loved ones.

"Hospitals are not a target," said Ghassan Abu Sittah of the charity Doctors Without Borders, who was inside the building when it was hit.

"This bloodshed must stop. Enough is enough."

As the sun rose at the blast site, rubble, charred cars and victims' belongings were scattered around the Christian-run hospital.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said hundreds died including women, children, staff and "internally displaced people seeking safe shelter".

Gaza health authorities said between 200 and 300 people died, while Hamas put the toll at more than 500 dead.

Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian accounts could be independently corroborated.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told a press conference that the hospital was hit by a rocket that misfired after it was launched by Islamic Jihad -- an ally of Hamas which has fired thousands of rockets toward Israel since October 7.

"Our radar system tracked missiles fired by terrorists in Gaza at the time of the explosion and the trajectory analysis of the rockets shows the rockets were fired in close proximity to the hospital."

Hamas responded that Israel's "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone".

- 'Day of rage' -

Entire Gaza neighbourhoods have been razed and survivors are left with dwindling supplies of food, water and fuel, unable to flee the 40-kilometre (25-mile) long strip blockaded by Israel and Egypt since 2007.

"The situation in Gaza is spiralling out of control," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"We need violence on all sides to stop."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" and warned Israel against "the collective punishment of the Palestinian people".

Biden said he was encouraging Netanyahu to ensure "life-saving capacity to help the Palestinians who are innocent and caught in the middle of this".

Across the region, the response to the hospital strike was quick and furious as Jordanian protesters tried to storm the Israeli embassy and Lebanese protesters clashed with security forces outside the US embassy.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said the cancelled four-way summit in Amman would be held "when the decision to stop the war and put an end to these massacres has been taken".

In Lebanon, the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement vowed a "day of rage" on Wednesday.

Inside Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians who hold US and other foreign passports have desperately hoped to escape through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the only way in and out of Gaza not controlled by Israel.

The Rafah crossing has remained closed during the war as Israel has struck the Palestinian side, preventing the delivery of aid piled up in long convoys of trucks waiting in Egypt.

Sisi, in a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, denied Egypt was keeping the border closed and warned against any potential Israeli plan to permanently drive Palestinians out of Gaza.

Such a "forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt" would set a precedent for also driving West Bank Palestinians into Jordan, Sisi said.

The effect, the Egyptian president warned, would be "eradicating the Palestinian cause" and making a future Palestinian state "impossible".