…Biden says ‘based on information we have today, it appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza’

…White House says current US assessment of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source info is that Israel not responsible for explosion at Gaza hospital

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…Biden hugs survivors of Hamas rampage

U.S. President Joe Biden pledged solidarity with Israel on Wednesday and said a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital appeared to have been caused by Hamas militants as he wrapped up an urgent Middle East peace mission that was curtailed by the explosion.

Raising fears of wider instability, protesters around the Middle East vented fury with Israel over the fireball that engulfed the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital late on Tuesday, which Palestinian officials said killed 471 people.

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They blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast, while Israel it was caused by a failed rocket launch by Gaza’s Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.

Biden promised more aid to Israel at the end of his impromptu one-day visit to the country, which is bombarding Gaza to try to root out militants from its ruling Hamas group after they killed 1,400 Israelis in a rampage earlier this month.

He said of the hospital blast: “Based on the information we have seen today, it (explosion) appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.”

In Washington, the White House National Security Council echoed Biden, saying the U.S. assessment was based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information.

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Arab leaders responded to the loss of life at the hospital, which they blamed on Israel, by cancelling a summit with Biden in Jordan. This had been intended as the second half of his carefully choreographed itinerary for emergency meetings with allies to avert a wider Middle East war.

DON’T BE CONSUMED BY RAGE, BIDEN SAYS

Biden said the United States would do everything it could to ensure Israel was safe while also urging Israelis not to be consumed by rage, reiterating that the vast majority of Palestinians were not affiliated with Hamas.

The Gaza health ministry said 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and 12,065 injured in Israeli air strikes since Oct 7.

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Biden said the U.S. would provide $100 million in new funding for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“What sets us apart from the terrorists is we believe in the fundamental dignity of every human life,” Biden said. If that was not respected, “then the terrorists win.”

He also said he would ask Congress for an “unprecedented” aid package this week, before flying out of Israel after what ended up being a less than eight-hour visit.

Biden faced intense pressure to secure a clear Israeli commitment to let aid into Gaza from Egypt, to ease the plight of civilians in the small, densely populated coastal enclave.

At the end of his visit, Netanyahu’s office put out a statement saying Israel would let food, water and medicines reach southern Gaza via Egypt. It reiterated that it would not let aid in from Israel until Hamas released Israeli hostages.

BIDEN SUMMIT WITH ARABS CANCELLED

Biden’s Middle East trip was designed to calm the region, but Jordan called off his planned summit in Aman with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority after the hospital blast. Instead, he was expected to speak to the Jordanian and Egyptian leaders by phone from Air Force One on his way home.

After talks with Netanyahu’s war cabinet, Biden held an emotional meeting with Israeli survivors of the Oct. 7 slaughter. He hugged retired grandmother Rachel Edri, who was held hostage at gunpoint in her home for 20 hours by Hamas and used food and conversation to stall them until their capture.

“Please keep supporting us in eliminating Hamas once and for all,” a soldier told Biden.

Hamas and witnesses later said Israel was bombarding Gaza City’s Zeitoun district, and the group’s armed wing said it fired more rockets towards Israel’s biggest city Tel Aviv on Wednesday over what it called Israeli attacks on Gaza civilians.

Sirens sounded in central Israel but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

‘HELP US, HELP US!’

The accounts of destruction at the hospital were horrific even by the standards of the past 12 days, which have confronted the world with relentless images, first of Israelis murdered by Hamas gunmen in their homes and then of Palestinian families buried under rubble from Israel’s retaliatory strikes.

Rescue workers scoured blood-stained debris for survivors. The Gaza health ministry put the death toll at 471, though Israel disputed those figures. Palestinian ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said rescuers were still recovering bodies.

“People came running into the surgery department screaming, ‘Help us, help us, there are people killed and wounded inside the hospital!'” said Dr Fadel Naim, head of the hospital’s Orthopedic Surgery Department.

Israel later released drone footage of the scene of the explosion, which it said showed it was not responsible because there was no impact crater from any missile or bomb and no structural damage to surrounding buildings.

The Israeli military published what it said was an audio recording of “communication between terrorists talking about rockets misfiring”.

Palestinians were convinced the explosion was an Israeli attack, with no warning for civilians to leave a hospital being used as a shelter by Gazans already made homeless by bombing.

FURY ACROSS MIDDLE EAST

World leaders from U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the blast in statements that nonetheless avoided addressing who was to blame.

The blast unleashed anger across the Middle East.

Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse anti-government protesters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, seat of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, one of the Arab leaders who cancelled a meeting with Biden.

Tensions also ran very high on Israel’s border with Lebanon, where clashes between the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israel over the past week have been the deadliest since the last all-out war in 2006.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army said troops exchanged fire with militants across the border and a tank destroyed two militant positions on Lebanese soil after spotting fighters trying to fire an anti-tank rocket.

Reuters