Day: October 18, 2023
Hundreds of Palestinians are feared dead after a huge blast at a hospital in Gaza City, blamed by Hamas on an Israeli air strike, the BBC reports.
But Israel says the blast was caused by rockets misfired by another group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and both sides deny blame.
Following the blast at Gaza’s Al Ahli hospital, a meeting between Joe Biden and Arab leaders – including Palestine’s Mahmoud Abbas – was cancelled.
Biden had been due to head to Jordan after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; there he would’ve met King Abdullah of Jordan, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt and Abbas.
Late last night, though, Jordan’s foreign minister said the meeting could only be held when the parties could agree to end the “war and the massacres against Palestinians”, blaming Israel for the hospital blast.
In a tweet, Biden said he was “outraged and deeply saddened” by the blast – and directed his national security team to “continue gathering information about what exactly happened”.
At least 600,000 Palestinians have fled the northern Gaza Strip for the south since Israeli military warnings.
Israel has blocked essential supplies to Gaza after a Hamas attack on 7 October that left at least 1,300 Israelis dead.