Roving Periscope: Hospital blast kills over 500 in Gaza; Biden’s Jordan meet with Arab leaders called off
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After a mysterious blast, that killed over 500 people in a Gaza hospital overnight and Hamas and Israel blamed each other for, US President Joe Biden landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning, surprised that his proposed meeting with Arab leaders in Jordan later in the day has been canceled as anti-Israel protests raged across the Muslim world.
Biden’s visit came amid Israel’s unrelenting preparations on war footing to start a comprehensive ground attack on the Gaza Strip anytime, as the death toll after the October 7 Hamas invasion reached nearly 5,000, including 3,300 Palestinians, on the 12th day of the attack. Thousands of others have been wounded in missile attacks, many of them critically.
The situation was so grim on Tuesday that when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s aircraft landed at the David Ben Gurian Airport, he had to rush out on the runway and evacuate to a shelter after a missile attack. His aides and German journalists accompanying him were seen taking cover by lying on the runway.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had condemned the Hamas terror attack last week and supported Israel in this hour of crisis, also expressed shock at the loss of life in a Gaza hospital.
“Deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured. Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible,” PM Modi wrote on Wednesday on microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter).
President Biden, who air-dashed to Israel after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s whirlwind shuttle diplomacy in the last week apparently bore little fruit, might push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to restart humanitarian aid in the war-torn Gaza Strip where hundreds of thousands are suffering from the lack of water, food, medicines, electricity, etc. because of a week-long blockade.
The Gaza hospital blast’s source is still unknown, but it may have been caused by those like Iran trying to ‘sabotage’ the US President’s mission in Israel and his proposed peace talks with Arab leaders in Jordan.
On its part, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) denied their role in the hospital blast and blamed another terror group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, active in the enclave, whose ‘failed rocket attack’ hit the hospital.
Chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said an investigation had “confirmed that there was no IDF fire from the land, sea or air that hit the hospital…there was no structural damage to buildings around the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital and no craters consistent with an air strike.”
“Most of this damage would have been done due to the propellant, not just the warhead,” he said, accusing Hamas of inflating the number of casualties from the explosion and saying it could not know as quickly as it claimed what had caused the blast. His office also shared a video of the hospital blast.
Following the hospital attack, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi canceled a summit his country was to host in Amman with President Biden and the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders.
Biden will now visit only Israel, a White House official said.
Condemning the hospital blast, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres asserted that the Hamas’ attack on Israel earlier this month could not “justify the collective punishment of people… I’m horrified by hundreds of people killed in the hospital strike in Gaza.”
The hospital blast came amid intensified bombardments in towns near southern Gaza, where Israel had earlier ordered civilians to take refuge
The United Nations on Tuesday said that Israel’s siege of Gaza and its evacuation order for the northern part of the enclave could amount to a forcible transfer of civilians and be in breach of international law. The term “forcible transfer” describes the forced relocation of civilian populations and it is a crime against humanity punishable by the International Criminal Court.
