TEL AVIV, October 18. /TASS/. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he gave US President Joe Biden evidence that Israel didn’t strike a hospital in Gaza.
"Last night, before the US president departed to Israel, I provided him with concrete evidence that it was [the Palestinian radical organization] Islamic Jihad, and not the Israel Defense Forces, that fired the rocket that hit the hospital in Gaza," the prime minister said in a statement released by his office.
Netanyahu said that he had ordered government agencies and the IDF to "disseminate this evidence."
"And today the whole world knows the truth," the prime minister stated. "It will also hear it from the UN Security Council."
Biden visited Israel earlier on Wednesday to show US support for the country. He was scheduled to head to Jordan afterward to hold talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, but the meeting was canceled after the hospital strike. At the meeting with Netanyahu, Biden said the other side of the conflict, not Israel, was responsible for the attack on the hospital. The US refers to the incident as an explosion at the hospital, rather than a strike.
Al-Ahli Hospital was hit on October 17. According to Palestinian data, the strike killed 471 people and injured 342 others. Palestine put the responsibility for the incident on the Israeli Air Force, while Israel said the explosion at the hospital was caused by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that went off course after it was fired. A period of mourning has been declared in Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon.