WATCH: Biden Tells Netanyahu Gaza Hospital Airstrike Appears to Have ‘Been Done By the Other Team’
President Joe Biden confirms to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that evidence shows the hospital airstrike in Gaza “appears” to have been done by Hamas.
Biden is the first sitting U.S. president to visit Israel in a time of war, and the issue of who was responsible for a deadly rocket explosion of a Gaza hospital was nearly the first thing that was addressed. Initial reports from Gaza immediately blamed Israel for the explosion, which reportedly killed over 200 individuals. Still, Israel quickly denied that claim and instead blamed Hamas for the deadly attack or rocket misfire.
In a joint press event in Tel Aviv shortly after landing, Biden said, “I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, in our view. But there are a lot of people out there who are not sure. So we got a lot of work to overcome, a lot of things.”
Despite Israel’s denials, a wave of anti-Israel protests erupted in cities across the Middle East. In Lebanon, hundreds of protesters tried to break through security barriers near the US embassy.
CNN’s Erin Burnett, who has been doing stunning work from Israel, then provided context and evidence put forth by Israel that they claim proves the hospital attack was from a misfired rocket:
First of all, they literally are putting out here documentation that they say proves that they did not do this. They are saying, for example, basic things, that when you have an Israeli strike, it is followed by craters. Right. That they’re saying craters and that these weren’t here. They’re saying that the rocket actually came from a group called the Islamic Jihadist Group from a cemetery right next to the hospital that it launched there, and it failed. Now, they say because it was so close, the large blast is actually evidence not of its power, but of the short trajectory. They say that they can still see the rocket has a lot of its propellant fuel. So it obviously didn’t travel very far. So this is the argument they’re laying out and they literally are, as I said, are putting out pictures they took from a drone. And they also are putting out audio of what the IDF claims are terrorists talking about the misfire. Now, I should say CNN cannot independently verify what caused the explosion or the authenticity of that exchange. But I will say they put this out. They even put out a map here showing how many misfires they say have happened since the beginning of this war. Now, 12 days ago, 450 failed launches by jihadist groups in the Gaza Strip. They’re putting all of this out. The question is, when you look at those pictures of people on the street, does it matter to those individuals? No, because they believe this was Israel in the eyes of the international community. Maybe this does make a difference, but in the eyes of the streets, no.
Burnett then tossed to Clarissa Ward, reporting from Ashkelon, Israel near the Gaza border for the Arab state reaction:
There’s no question this feels like a watershed moment in this already gruesome conflict. We’ve been speaking, Erin, to doctors on the ground, some of whom were at that hospital. They say that on October 14th, there were two Israeli hits very close to the hospital. They also said that they received a phone call the day afterwards from the IDF telling them that they should evacuate from that hospital. They’re using that to bolster their argument and their conviction that this was indeed an Israeli strike. They point to the fact that they do not believe that a rocket attack would cause that kind of damage, would cause that kind of death toll. They also have been describing just gruesome scenes are and some of which we have seen borne out in videos of the horror of the aftermath of this explosion, body parts strewn across the entire area. They said that basically people had been taking shelter in the Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital, that they had been many of them sleeping in tents in the garden of the hospital.
This is a common thing. During times of heavy bombardment in Gaza, people flocked to hotels, people flocked to hospitals. They believe that those areas are largely safe. They set up camp there. They wait for the situation to improve. Obviously, in this case, we’re seeing now hundreds dead. It is still unclear what the exact number is, the efforts to try to sift through the wreckage and identify how many people have been killed continues. But at this stage, as you say, the focus now is very much on the reaction and the fact that for many Arab states, this is now becoming a national security issue in their own countries because people are horrified. People are angry. People want revenge and they are taking to the streets. And we have seen protests erupting all throughout the region.
Watch above via CNN.
