2y ago

Biden, in Israel, says hospital blast caused by militants

www.reuters.com

U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday pledging solidarity in its war against Hamas and backing its account that a blast that killed huge numbers of Palestinians at a Gaza hospital had been caused by militants.

The fireball that engulfed the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital delivered some of the most harrowing images yet from a 12-day war, and wrecked White House plans for Biden's emergency diplomatic mission to the Middle East, with Arab leaders calling off their planned summit with the U.S. president.

Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast, which it said had killed as many as 500 people. Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.

Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: "I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of 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."

69 comments

I'd be interested in evidence that supports either claim.
- https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-presents-evidence-misfired-gazan-rocket-caused-hospital-blast-slams-hamas-lies/
  A photo outside the hospital shows some scorched concrete and burnt cars, but no crater or anything you'd really expect from a military bomb. The IDF also supplied intercepted audio of Hamas fighters discussing a botched missile launch:
  “I am telling you this is the first time we see a missile like this falling, and so that’s why we are saying (the rocket) belongs to Palestinian Islamic Jihad…,” says one of the alleged Hamas members.
  “It’s from us?'” asks the second.
  “It looks like it…,” replies the first. “They are saying that the shrapnel from the missile is local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel.”
  “It couldn’t have found another place to explode?” asks the second.
  “They shot it from the cemetery behind the hospital,” says the first, “and it misfired and fell on them.”
  There is also evidence that there was a barrage of rockets fired at around the same time.
  Naturally this is from the IDF, who aren't unbiased. Speaking only for myself though, I really can't possibly imagine what Israel would stand to gain from doing this.
  
  I really can't possibly imagine what Israel would stand to gain from doing this.
  More dead Palestinians.
  You can't really pretend that's not one of their goals when they're always killing as many as possible.
  
  Haha, really good source, read their blogs and you can see why and how they're trying to shift the narrative.
  As a European, I don't believe anything the US says anymore. Not after decades of deception and disinformation from them.
  
  The barrage of rockets were launched around half an hour after the hospital blast according to the video footage.
- Yeah, there still seems to be no evidence. I've been holding judgement from the start.
  
  There's too much conflicting evidence for me to be able to say at this point. Has there been news on the supposed Al Jazeera recording of the event that shows an internal launch?
- What a shallow life you lead.
  People a fucking dying here dude, we want proof so we know if theres a cut and dry reason to force israel to back off on the bombings due to civilian death.
  
  Ah yes, sympathizing with innocent victims who were almost certainly bombed by Israel is just to bolster talking points. Not to call out obvious war crimes. If it weren't Israel, they wouldn't have deleted their "evidence" in the form of video analysis they posted briefly until they were called out for it being obvious bullshit.
  
  I'm excited for people to realize that Hamas does not, in fact, give a shit at all about Palestinians and are not a "resistance" movement of "freedom fighters."
  So yeah, blowing up a hospital because they kept fucking bombs near or in it would do wonders for that.
  
  Have you considered that many people here pay taxes to governments that send billions to Isreal so if it was Isreal not only do our countires share some of the blame but that also means we should vote for peole who would reign in Isreali agression and spending. Thats probably also why you see more critisizing of Isreal, because that's something we can actually change. My government doesn't fund or really engage with Hamas or PIJ so there's not much more we can do but condem the taking of innocent life, which just about everyone already did.
  
  A hospital was bombed and people died. It’s a tragedy and everyone is focused on how they can own their political “opponents” and win online arguments.
  I am not going to disagree with you, I feel like that deserves a some semblance of gravity of the situation. This isn't a zero sum game, but we have already committed to those rules.
  But at the end of the day, debating is all we can do. As I doubt most of us here have the power to stop what is happening. We have to wait until both sides have had enough. Only they can decide when that is.
  Overall, my only complaint is that the only evidence that could be shown on this situation, was a 240p 15 second video from 20 km away, of a missile intercept by a patriot system.
  We give 5 billion taxpayer funded dollars a year for intel on the region and this is the best they can do to clear up the situation?
  
  Why are you being downvoted? This is true.
Just like claim about the 40 babies that later was disputed/ not true?
Where are all the evidence?
This is just claiming things without an actual evidence. Kind of propoganda.
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061
  This BBC article is a good review of the current evidence.
  
  Thanks! I will read it.
- Actually a lot of the OSINT community has come out and vetted much this version (example) but go ahead and tell us how you not being aware of any evidence means it doesn’t exist
  Here’s more further confirming it was not an air strike:
  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-gaza-invasion-news-commentary.html#video-evidence-suggests-explosion-was-caused-by-misfired-rocket
  Direct footage: https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1714383923881373908?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
  
  I actually wasn’t aware and thanks, I will check the links.
  However you have such an aggressive approach, that I doubt it will be of any use to discuss nor argue with you any further.
  Therefore, I welcome you to my blocklist.
Honestly, in this post-truth world … I don’t believe a freaking word of it …
"THE OTHER TEAM"
"MILITANTS"
- Yeah and? Both sides are absolutely fucked, both with a LOT of unarmed civvy blood on their hands.
  Team A and team B are both guilty as fuck to many atrocities, both militant groups, etc
  News flash: Hamas IS NOT Palestine
- I legit was not sure which side he was talking about when he used that term.
The other 11999 bombs though? Yeah totally us! Seems asinine to debate this one specific killing of civilians.
What are we up to now? At least 3000 dead and 10,000 wounded in 10 days, not counting those lost in the rubble of the buildings they've flattened.
“I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of 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.”
about as bad as the nfl refs lately
explosion is a fucking hell of a way to describe a bombing
- Bombs explode. Pedantic doesn’t even describe how nitpicky this.
  
  was very upsetting when the twin towers or pearl harbor exploded spontaneously
Just like he saw the picture of 40 beheaded babies, son died in Iraq, drove an 18 wheeler, convinced Strom Thurman to pass voting rights act and civil rights act, was raised in synagogues, etc, this guy is a liar.
Yes it was caused by militants
Was it our militants or the other team's militants?
It literally does not matter
- It most certainly does matter. We're aiding and supporting one side. They should not be using that aid to continue to murder civilians.
  
  The two sides are murderers, and civilians. If you're divvying them up by what flag they're waving then you've chosen the side of the murderers.
I'm afraid that the US is gonna have another 9/11 if we don't stop supporting Israel.
- Because the indiscriminate bombings that kill civilians makes people want to join terrorist organizations because they have no other recourse for their families being murdered?
- That's just a solid terrorist W against you then.
So this here is the current view on the area where supposedly about 500 people died. Also there are allegedly more than 300 wounded.
Questions I personally have:
where is the rubble and where is the bomb crater?
why does the building seem undamaged?
how do you fit 800 people in this parking lot?
- You trying to start a new copypasta there pal?
Jesus Christ Joe. You fucked over Anita and now you're on to fucking over a country because you can't find your spine with both hands a doctor providing instruction.
People spending too much time on the specific of who to blame for a hospital strike instead of the hundreds of kids that already died or injured due to to attacks on heavily populated closed areas.
Fix your title. That's not what he said.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
GAZA/TEL AVIV, Oct 18 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday pledging solidarity in its war against Hamas and backing its account that a blast that killed huge numbers of Palestinians at a Gaza hospital had been caused by militants.
Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: "I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of 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."
Biden's trip to the Middle East was supposed to calm the region, even as he demonstrated U.S. support for its ally Israel, which has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement whose fighters killed 1,400 Israelis in a rampage on Oct. 7.
The scenes of destruction from the hospital were horrific even by the standards of the past 12 days, which have confronted the world with relentless images, first of Israelis slaughtered in their homes and then of Palestinian families buried under rubble from Israel's retaliatory strikes.
The U.S. State Department issued a new warning to Americans not to travel to Lebanon, where border clashes between the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israel over the past week have been the deadliest since the last all-out war in 2006.
But he is under intense pressure to win a clear Israeli commitment to alleviate the plight of civilians in the Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million Palestinians are under total siege, with no access to food, fuel, water or medical supplies.
The original article contains 884 words, the summary contains 253 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

69 comments