Lagatar24 Desk
Tel Aviv, Oct 18: US President Joe Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday as part of a diplomatic initiative to prevent a war with Hamas and prevent it from turning into a broader conflict. Here Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed him.
After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he stated that Israel will receive “what it needs to defend itself” and that the US would continue to stand with the Jewish country.
The explosion at the Gaza hospital al-Ahli appeared to have been done by the other side and not you,” Biden said to Netanyahu during their one-on-one discussion.
The explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people, has sparked outrage across West Asia. This has posed a challenge and complication to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Biden had plans to visit Jordan as part of his previously scheduled itinerary, but his meeting with Arab leaders was cancelled before departing from Washington, depriving the opportunity for a crucial face-to-face dialogue amid the ongoing crisis.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Biden’s summit meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman will no longer take place.
On Tuesday, Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike for the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital, but Israel denied the allegations, attributing the blast to a rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad group.
Biden will now only stay in Tel Aviv, where he is expected to emphasize the importance of providing significant humanitarian aid to Gaza during his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is preparing for a potential ground incursion into Gaza in response to Hamas attacks on October 7. These attacks resulted in the deaths of 1,400 Israeli citizens.
