Tel Aviv, October 18 (RHC)-- U.S. President Joe Biden is in Israel, hours after Israel was accussed of killing at least 500 people at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in an airstrike. In addition to treating sick and wounded patients, the hospital was acting as a refuge for displaced Gazans fleeing Israeli’s unrelenting attacks and another 250 may have been killed -- a total of 750 men, women and children.
Biden has so far refused to call for a ceasefire, instead insisting that the Palestinians themselves bombed the hospital. The U.S. president said to Isreali Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, refering to the massacre: “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”
Media reports reveal that Israeli officials deleted a video posted on social media showing Palestinian rockets being fired, after realizing the timestamp on the footage did not match up with the hospital attack.
Many have pointed out that militant groups in Palestine do not have the firepower to level a massive building. And Israel has a history of lying about its responsibility in crimes against Palestinians, including its murder of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last year, which it initially blamed on Palestinians. Israel "apologized" one year after her death.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Israel told the hospital it had sent “warning strikes” one day before the deadly explosion.
The United Nations has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Meanwhile, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas canceled a planned summit in Jordan with Biden in the wake of the hospital bombing. Biden will now only meet with Israeli officials.
As Biden tours Tel Aviv and pats Netanyahu on the back, Palestinians condemned U.S. support for Israel’s genocide. One resident of Khan Younis in Gaza, Mansour Chumand, had these words for the U.S. president. “To President Biden and his administration: Generations will not forget, and history will be recorded, that it was your administration, your billions of dollars, your support with weapons of mass destruction to the Israeli Defense Forces, which has caused what has been happening right now in Gaza.”
On Tuesday, Israeli strikes hit other civilian targets in Gaza, including a U.N. school where thousands were taking refuge. At least 24 U.N. installations have been hit in the past week, killing at least 14 United Nations staffers.
Israeli forces have killed at least 3,300 Palestinians over the last 12 days. Around a third of those killed were children. Gazans continue to suffer from a lack of all basic necessities, including water.
