Biden hugs Bibi, blames Palestinians

Tel Aviv [Israel], October 19: US President Joe Biden delivered unequivocal US backing for the Zionist entity in person on Wednesday, supporting his ally's stance that Palestinian militants were behind a deadly rocket strike on a Gaza hospital that has inflamed anger across the Middle East and beyond. Arab countries blamed the Zionist entity, which has rained bombs on Gaza since the Oct 7 attack by Hamas fighters, with protests in Muslim countries from Egypt to Pakistan. But Biden, on a solidarity visit to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, voiced support or the Zionist entity's position that a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket caused the deadly carnage at Gaza's Christian-run Ahli Arab Hospital.
"I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday," Biden said about the strike that killed 471 people according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled health ministry. "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, as protests also erupted against the Zionist entity and the United States in the occupied West Bank and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
Asked later by reporters what made him sure the Zionist entity was not responsible for the strike, Biden replied: "The data I was shown by my defense department." At a news conference later, Biden said: "Based on the information we have seen today it appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza." But he gave the Zionist entity a warning, despite saying he understood the urge to hit back at those responsible for the worst attack in the Zionist entity's history on Oct 7, when some 1,400 people were killed. "I caution this while you feel that rage: Don't be consumed by it.
After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice we also made mistakes," he said. The Zionist entity said afterwards it had agreed to Biden's request to allow aid into the besieged Gaza Strip via Egypt after mounting concern about dwindling supplies and warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe. But it said it was limited to "food, water and medicine" and conditional on it not being used by Hamas, Netanyahu's office added. The horror of the hospital deaths overshadowed Biden's high-stakes regional visit, with Jordan cancelling a summit between King Abdullah II, Biden, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
The Zionist entity's military campaign to destroy Hamas, which is holding 199 hostages in the besieged territory, has now claimed the lives of 3,478 people, according to health officials. In besieged Gaza, the hospital blast brought new horrors after 12 days of sustained bombardment that the Zionist entity says targets Hamas and which has destroyed entire city blocks. More than a million people have been displaced ahead of an anticipated Zionist ground offensive, according to the UN. Overnight, after the explosion, AFP reporters saw scores of bodies cloaked in blood-stained sheets and white plastic lined the floors at the nearby the Al-Shifa hospital, where bereaved relatives tried to identify loved ones.
"As I entered the hospital, I heard the explosion. I saw a massive fire," said Gaza resident Adnan Al-Naqa. "The entire square was on fire. There were bodies everywhere, children, women and elderly people." "Hospitals are not a target," said Ghassan Abu Sittah of the charity Doctors Without Borders, who was inside the building when the compound was hit. "This bloodshed must stop. Enough is enough." The Palestine Red Crescent Society said hundreds died including "internally displaced people seeking safe shelter". 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.
Hamas replied that the Zionist entity's "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone". The group also slammed the United States on Wednesday, accusing the Zionist entity's long-time ally of being complicit in the ongoing strikes on Gaza. "The continued endorsement of the Zionist narrative by the US administration makes it complicit in the occupation's massacres and the Baptist hospital massacre in Gaza," it said. Entire Gaza neighborhoods have been razed and survivors are left with dwindling supplies of food, water and fuel, unable to flee the 40-km long strip blockaded by the Zionist entity and Egypt since 2007. "The situation in Gaza is spiraling out of control," World Health Organization chief TedrosAdhanomGhebreyesus 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 the Zionist entity 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". Inside Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians who hold US or other foreign passports have desperately hoped to escape through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the only way in or out of Gaza not controlled by the Zionist entity. The Rafah crossing has remained closed during the war as the Zionist entity has struck the Palestinian side, preventing the delivery of aid piled up in long convoys of trucks waiting in Egypt. - AFP
Source: Kuwait Times