US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he believed that the explosion at Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza Strip was caused by the ‘other team’ during his meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The leaders were jointly addressing the media in Israel. US President Joe Biden is on a visit to Israel to show US’ solidarity as the nation emerges from a terrorist attack led by Hamas and stop the region from spiralling into a wider conflict.
However, Biden’s plans of discussing peace in the region while maintaining close ties with the Israeli government took a hit when a blast at the Ahli Arab Hospital killed between 200 and 300 people late Tuesday.
“I am deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion in 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,” Biden told Netanyahu.
“We have to bear in mind that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people,” he added.
Health authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said the blast at the Ahli Arab Hospital killed between 200 and 300 people and was caused by the latest in a wave of Israeli airstrikes. Hamas said in a statement 500 had died. Israeli Defense Forces blamed Palestinian militants, saying an outgoing Islamic Jihad rocket misfired and struck the hospital.
Biden had said that Hamas’s terrorism makes ISIS look more rational.
The war between Hamas and Israel following the October 7 attacks have led to thousands of deaths of Israelis and Palestinians. Over 2,700 Palestinians have been killed and over 9,700 wounded – this number does not reflect Tuesday’s hospital blast deaths – and more than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians who were slain in Hamas’s terrorist attack. Gazan authorities believe that over 1,200 people across Gaza are buried under the rubble.
