President Joe Biden vowed to show the world that the US stands in solidarity with Israelis during his visit there on Wednesday, and offered an assessment that the deadly explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital apparently was not carried out by the Israeli military.
Based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting. But Biden said there were a lot of people out there who weren't sure what caused the blast.
Biden didn't offer details on why he believed the blast was not caused by the Israelis. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike caused the destruction and hundreds of deaths.
The Israeli military denied involvement and blamed a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group. However, that organisation also rejected responsibility.
Meeting with Arab leaders cancelled
Outrage scuttled Biden's plans to visit Jordan, where King Abdullah II was to host meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. But Abbas withdrew in protest, and the summit was subsequently canceled outright.
Jordan declared three days of mourning after the hospital explosion. Kirby said Biden understood the move was part of a mutual decision to call off the Jordan portion of his trip. He said Biden would speak to the Arab leaders by phone as he returned to Washington.
The possibility of improved relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours appears to be dimming; Israel has been preparing for a potential ground invasion of Gaza in response to Hamas' attacks.
Roughly 2,800 Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli strikes in 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 the Al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday. No clear cause has been established for the blast.
'Allies embrace'
Netanyahu met Biden at Ben Gurion Airport and the two embraced. It was almost exactly a month ago that they sat together at the United Nations General Assembly, where Netanyahu marvelled that a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia seemed within reach.
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.
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."
I know I speak for all the people of Israel when I say thank you Mr. President, thank you for standing with Israel today, tomorrow and always.
Netanyahu said Biden had rightly drawn a clear line between the forces of civilisation and the forces of barbarism, saying Israel was united in its resolve to defeat Hamas. "The civilised world must unite to defeat Hamas," he said.
Protests erupt
Protests swept through the region after the blast at the hospital, which had been treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many more who were seeking a refuge from the fighting.
Hundreds of Palestinians flooded the streets of major 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.
Ayman Safadi, Jordan's foreign minister, told a state-run television network that the war is "pushing the region to the brink.
There are also fears that a new front could erupt along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah operates. The Iran-backed organization has been skirmishing with Israeli forces.
Always a believer in the power of personal diplomacy, Biden's trip will test the limits of US influence in the Middle East at a volatile time. It's his second trip to a conflict zone this year, after visiting Ukraine in February to show solidarity with the country as it battles a Russian invasion.
The visit to Israel coincides with rising humanitarian concerns in Gaza, where Israel has cut off the flow of food, fuel and water. Mediators have been struggling to break a deadlock over providing supplies to desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, bouncing back and forth between Arab and Israeli leadership ahead of Biden's visit, spent seven and a half hours meeting on Monday in Tel Aviv in an effort to broker some kind of aid agreement and emerged with a green light to develop a plan on how aid can enter Gaza and be distributed to civilians.
Although only a modest accomplishment on the surface, US officials stressed that Blinken's talks led to a significant change in Israel's position going in that Gaza would remain cut off from fuel, electricity, water and other essential supplies.
