What Happened to the First Five Minutes of Israel’s First Allied Reaction on Gaza? Comment on a Post by Kirby
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The trip comes as Israel prepares for a ground offensive in Gaza. Biden wants to learn more about the objectives and plans for coming days and weeks, said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.
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The FDA ban on synthetic food coloring has come crashing down in the Middle East, prompting a counterterrorism strike by Air Force One in Tel Aviv
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This visit is especially bad as it coincides with a high point of the Middle East Institute’s counterterrorism program. The circumstances behind this strike at the hospital are irrelevant right now. The tensions have been getting worse over the last week.
At a time when anger was blowing out in the Middle East and Gaza was facing a humanitarian catastrophe, Air Force One took an American president to Tel Aviv.
As Air Force One sat on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, White House officials told reporters that the summit in Jordan planned for Wednesday had been abruptly canceled. It was unclear for a while whether the plane would leave for the Middle East or not. Mr. Biden had no answers to the questions that were posed.
Israel and Israel need not be allowed to leave Gaza after the Hamas attacks: Israeli President Biden’s message to Israel echoed by Israel
The only way for the Palestinians to leave Gaza is through the Rafah crossing. Food, water and medicine are already extremely scarce in Gaza, and the dire conditions have worsened in the last week. Many of the people who are injured are children, and hospitals are running out of electricity to treat them.
Biden’s team has been pressing Israel and Egypt to allow food, water and medicine into Gaza — and to let civilians out. Kirby expressed some hope on his way to Tel Aviv.
As President Biden slowly made his way around a hotel conference room, each of the survivors or relatives of victims of the devastating Hamas attacks in Israel told him their story of tragedy or defiance. He gave each one of them a hug and talked about how he dealt with loss.
Mr. Biden did not elaborate, but he presumably was referring to the invasion of Iraq, which he voted for as a senator and later came to regret. He didn’t explain what he meant in Israel’s case, but the meaning was clear. His message to Israel was to not allow the excesses of Hamas, which killed over 1,400 people and took nearly 200 hostages, to affect the world’s sympathy in the same way that the United States did two decades ago.
“He’ll be asking some tough questions – he’ll be asking them as a friend, as a true friend of Israel but he’ll be asking some questions of them,” Kirby said.
The pro-Israel stance of Biden was reinforced after the Hamas attacks, in which he stated that Israel has a right to defend itself and that it was the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Kirby said 31 US citizens are dead and 13 are still missing.
Biden and Netanyahu talked about the hospital explosion. John Kirby said that Israel hadcategorically and stridently denied responsibility.
Abbas canceled his meeting with Biden and called for three days of mourning. After talking to King Abdullah, Biden said he would postpone the visit.
The Jerusalem hospital is the first air-raid siren: Why Israel is already invaded by the Hamas regime, and why Israel isn’t
Hamas described the strike on the hospital as a massacre that “also exposes the American and Western support for this criminal occupation.” Hamas called on Muslims and Arabs across the world to protest and rally against Israel.
Biden has been to war zones before, including a trip to Ukraine in February. That travel wasn’t revealed until the president was on the ground in Kyiv.
Mr. Netanyahu has been prime minister for 13 of the past 14 years. The commander of military intelligence has taken responsibility but the prime minister has failed to do so. If the army and country were unprepared for the Hamas invasion, there is only one way to stop it.
How could this happen? we asked one another, neighbors in pajamas suddenly gathered in the not quite safety of the stairwell of our Jerusalem apartment building. The new war’s first air-raid siren had just sounded. It was early on a holiday morning; I’d heard no news. In a jittery loud voice, a man from across the hall told about us the Hamas invasion of Israel that had just begun.
The hospital strike in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon has caused protests to erupt. Protests also broke out in Palestinian cities in the West Bank with protesters in Ramallah chanting slogans against Israel and the Palestinian Authority leadership as police tried to disperse them.
The Israeli Embassy in Gaza explains the PIJ attack at the Baptist Al-Ahli hospital: a high-velocity attack on Israel
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters late Tuesday evening that an initial internal review showed it was a misfired rocket from Gaza, based on footage from Israeli drones and chatter among militants calling it a PIJ misfire.
“We don’t see a direct hit at the hospital, we see kind of a hit in the parking lot but we’re still finishing the investigation of that,” he said, before adding that Israel continues to gather intel, including off Al-Jazeera live footage and other sources.
He said that before the Baptist Al-Ahli hospital was hit, Israel had shelled the hospital twice, causing some damage. He said that Israel questioned why the hospital hadn’t yet been evacuated.
The president looks forward to consulting with these leaders in person, and will be keeping in contact with each of them over the coming days.
The Secretary-General called for a cease-fire. The fate of the entire region hangs in the balance, according to him.
Saudi Arabia, which had been in serious talks to normalize relations with Israel just weeks ago, also slammed Israel, saying it “condemns in the strongest terms the heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces.”
Hamas is continuing to launch missiles at Israel. Israel’s Iron Dome defense system intercepts most. Air raid sirens are frequently heard in cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
There are dead bodies in the grass outside the hospital, which are shown in online and on Al-Jazeera. Women and children were screaming, shaking, or still in shock while being treated in nearby hospitals. Medical supplies and medications have run out in most of Gaza’s functioning hospitals.
Israel has told half of Gaza’s population to leave their homes, with hundreds of thousands heading south. But areas in the south, and across Gaza, continue to be hit by Israeli airstrikes.
The senior Health Ministry official in Gaza held a press conference after the hospital strike. He stood at a podium, surrounded by the dead bodies of children, including babies.
Dr. Fadel Naim, a doctor at the Baptist Al-Ahli hospital, told NPR that doctors were operating on patients when they heard a loud explosion. He ran outside and saw dead and wounded everywhere.
He described the scene of the explosion and the discovery of one baby on the hospital roof. “Many babies died yesterday. Many babies.”
The Foreign Minister of the United States said in an interview that Israel has done a good job in fighting for justice and Palestine’s people’s rights
The Foreign Minister said in the interview that Israel has bombed the crossing several times in recent days, including when Egyptian workers were repairing damage from one of the strikes.
A U.N. shelter where thousands of Palestinians were seeking refuge was also struck by Israel on Tuesday, killing six people, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
The U.N. relief agency, OCHA, says Gaza has been under full electricity blackout and that its largest hospital only has a few more days of fuel for its generators after the World Health Organization delivered locally stored fuel to it.
The U.N. agency also said that every person in Gaza is estimated to have less than a gallon of water for all their needs per day, including for drinking, hygiene and cooking. The water and sanitation facilities have been badly damaged.
“People have resorted to consuming brackish water extracted from agricultural wells, increasing exposure to pesticides and other chemicals, placing the population at risk of death or infectious disease outbreak,” the U.N. relief agency said.
In a way, Mr. Biden flew to Israel on Wednesday to give the whole country a hug, to say how much America grieves with Israel and stands by Israel and has Israel’s back. The whisper in his ear was warning him not to give into the “primal feeling” of anger or grief that he believes America did after Sept. 11, 2001.
Mr. Biden referred to the Israeli nation as being shocked, pain, rage and all-consuming rage. Many Americans understand. You can’t look at the things your mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons, daughters, and children have experienced and not scream out for justice. Justice needs to be done. But I caution this — while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. We made mistakes while trying to get justice and get justice.