TEL AVIV, Israel
US President Joe Biden has
arrived in Israel for a diplomatic scramble to prevent the Gaza war 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 on Tuesday.U.S. President Joe Biden embraces Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on arrival at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Wednesday. Photo courtesy
Descending from the plane amid
a large security contingent on Wednesday, Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog on the tarmac at Ben Gurion
airport in Tel Aviv.
“Welcome, Mr President. God
bless you for protecting the nation of Israel,” Herzog’s office quoted him as
telling Biden.
Hundreds of armed police and
troops were stationed around the seafront Tel Aviv hotel where Netanyahu and
Biden hold talks, with snipers on the roofs of nearby villas.
Speaking at a news conference alongside Netanyahu, Biden said: “I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”
“But there’s a lot of people
out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot, we’ve got to overcome a lot of
things,” Biden added.
“The world is looking. Israel
has a value set like the United States does, and other democracies, and they
are looking to see what we are going to do.”
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher,
reporting from Tel Aviv, said Biden was giving Israel the green light to act as
it sees fit.
“When the Americans said that
their national security team would investigate the cause of the Gaza hospital
explosion on Tuesday night, many thought there will be an extensive inquiry,”
he said.
“But it appears that President
Biden has already decided who is behind the deadly attack, expressing, in
poorly chosen words, that the ‘other team’ was responsible.”
“This visit is a significant
display of support for the Israelis. By asserting that a misfiring rocket
caused the hospital carnage, Biden has effectively given Israel the green light
to act as it sees fit.”
Biden was originally scheduled
to visit Jordan as well, but his meetings with Arab leaders were called off as
he was leaving Washington on Tuesday evening, costing him an opportunity for
the face-to-face conversations that he views as crucial for navigating this
fraught moment.
Israel has been preparing for
a potential ground invasion of Gaza in response to the deadly October 7 attacks
on Israel by Hamas, the armed group that rules the Palestinian enclave. The
violence in Israel killed at least 1,400 people, mostly Israelis.
About 3,300 Palestinians have
been reported killed in Israel’s retaliatory air raids on 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 al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday. No clear cause has been
established for the blast.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said an
Israeli air raid caused the destruction. The Israeli military denied
involvement and blamed a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,
another armed group. However, that organisation also rejected responsibility.
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 protesters flooded
the streets of key 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.
Outrage over the hospital
explosion scuttled Biden’s plans to visit Jordan, where King Abdullah II had
planned to host meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. But Abbas withdrew in protest, and the summit
was subsequently cancelled outright.
Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign
minister, told a state-run television network that the Gaza war is “pushing the
region to the brink”.
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