Tel Aviv, Oct 18: President Joe Biden’s planned trip to the Middle East was thrown into disarray after a strike on a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds of Palestinians on Tuesday. The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah both called off a meeting with Biden, who was supposed to attend a summit in Amman with Egyptian and Palestinian leaders. Biden, who was scheduled to visit Tel Aviv and Jordan for a one-day trip, will now only go to Israel, the White House said as the president was heading to the airport.
“The president conveyed his deepest sympathy for the innocent lives lost in the hospital explosion in Gaza, and hoped for a quick recovery for the injured,” news agency Reuters quoted a White House official as saying. Biden “is looking forward to talking in person” with Egyptian, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders soon and will “stay regularly and directly in touch with each of them in the next few days.”