Biden ‘outraged’ by Gaza hospital blast, points to Hamas responsibility

TEL AVIV, Oct 18 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that Washington would provide Israel with everything it needed to defend itself as it wages war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which he appeared to blame for a devastating blast at a Gaza hospital.

Biden, who landed in Israel and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu early on Wednesday, said Hamas was worse than Islamic State for its killings of Israeli civilians in the surprise attack on Oct. 7 which triggered the latest Israel-Palestinian violence.

He said he was “sad and outraged” by an explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday which Hamas said killed hundreds of people.

“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot — we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” Biden said.

Israel says the blast was caused by a Palestinian rocket that fell short. Hamas denies that. The bloodshed there has stoked already fierce anti-Israel protests in the region.

Biden said 31 Americans were among the more than 1,300 Israelis killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.

At the conference, Benjamin Netanyahu said 1,400 Israelis, “maybe more” had been killed during the Hamas attack, and thanked the US for “your support and your steadfast commitment to provide us with the tools we need to defend ourselves,” saying it was the first visit to Israel “by an American president during a time of war.”

Earlier IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari had presented what the Israel claims is evidence that the devastating explosion at the al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital was caused by a misfiring rocket from inside Gaza launched by Islamic Jihad. He said that propellant from the rocket had ignited and caused the explosion, and that imagery from the site showed it could not have been caused by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.