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With all eyes around the world on the quickly escalating Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip—and debating who is behind the explosion that killed hundreds at a Gaza hospital—it seems the White House is coming to a conclusion: Israel was not the culprit.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the “other team” was behind the blast, citing data he had been shown by the U.S. Defense Department. A senior UN official on Wednesday called for the agency to complete its own investigation, according to CNN.
Biden’s rhetoric is being closely watched and comes at a delicate time, as the White House balances between its many Arab and Middle Eastern allies and its longtime ally Israel. Whose team is the U.S. on, many leaders in the region are asking themselves.
According to the World Health Organization’s Tuesday estimates, 471 people died in the attack, and another 342 were injured, with 28 of those injuries critical. Aside from patients and health care workers, many civilians were also sheltering in and around the hospital, expecting it to be spared from attacks, as mandated by international humanitarian law.
.@WHO expresses grief for the horror that occurred at Al Ahli Arab Hospital.
Initial assessment indicates 471 people lost their lives and 342 were injured, including 28 critical injuries.
WHO has documented 136 attacks on health care from 7 to 17 Oct, with 493 people killed and… pic.twitter.com/DKX8YlQZCx
— WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (@WHOoPt) October 18, 2023
Palestinian officials were quick to say it was an Israeli airstrike, but the Israel Defense Forces say that intelligence traces the attack to a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.
As he met with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Wednesday, Biden said it appeared as though the attack was “done by the other team,” according to multiple news outlets.
But before Biden departed for the meeting, the U.S. government had not yet drawn a conclusion as to who was to blame for the bombing, CNN reported Wednesday, citing an anonymous U.S. official. The question of who was behind the attack has massive implications, with the Arab world in particular on edge, and protests in support of Palestine in many neighboring countries.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was midair during the organization’s emergency press conference Tuesday, but expressed his “shock and condemnation” through Dr. Michael Ryan, the organization’s executive director of health emergencies, who spoke for him.
But Ghebreyesus tweeted shortly after the attack, condemning it and calling for the “immediate protection of civilians and health care,” as well as for Israel’s evacuation order for northern Gaza to be reversed.
.@WHO strongly condemns the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital in north Gaza.
Early reports indicate hundreds of deaths and injuries.
We call for the immediate protection of civilians and health care, and for the evacuation orders to be reversed.#NotATarget https://t.co/6I4t99WV03— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 17, 2023
Al Ahli Arab Hospital was one of 20 hospitals in the north end of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from Israeli forces—an order the WHO, the UN, and other agencies have said is impossible to carry out due to insecurity in the area, the critical condition of many patients, a lack of ambulances, and a lack of alternative shelter, among other factors.
Combined, hospitals in northern Gaza were treating more than 2,000 patients, WHO officials said Tuesday. Since the beginning of the war Oct. 7, four Palestinian hospitals have been rendered inoperable due to damage or targeting, they said Wednesday, adding that its Gaza warehouse was now barren.
“Health workers are having to make impossible choices to ration what little they have left in supplies,” the agency said in a Wednesday tweet, adding that health workers are operating without anesthetics.
Yesterday, WHO team in Gaza handed over anesthesia medication and cortisone which they procured from the local market to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The medicines are enough to support 50 surgeries requiring general anesthesia and 500 patients in critical condition.… pic.twitter.com/md4d3WQwdr— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) October 18, 2023
Israeli forces on Friday ordered the evacuation of all people in northern Gaza in 24 hours as they prepared for a large-scale ground offensive. As of Wednesday, that offensive had not yet started. Many speculated it would not occur before Biden’s meeting with Netanyah on Wednesday.
Egypt’s Rafah crossing, the only potential entry point into Gaza, remained closed Wednesday, preventing thousands of pounds of humanitarian aid from entering the war-torn territory.
Nearly 2,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and nearly 10,000 injured, since the start of the war a week and a half ago, the United Nations Relief and Workers Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said in its latest situation report, published Tuesday, with data current as of Monday.
In Israel, 1,300 had been killed and at least 4,124 wounded. And in the West Bank, 58 Palestinians have been filled and 1,176 injured, according to the agency.
