It probably ended before it even began. US President Joe Biden's Middle East tour, first to Israel to show solidarity and then to Jordan to meet King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, was upended by the Gaza hospital attack, an incident that inflamed waves of protest and anger across the region.
The brutal attack on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which left hundreds dead, was quickly condemned by Biden. "I am outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion at the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza and the terrible loss of life that resulted," Biden said in a statement, without naming Israel.
Israel too was quick to shrug off responsibility, pinning it on an erratic rocket strike by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant outfit based in Gaza.
But, the damage was done as Jordan announced Biden's summit with Arab leaders, scheduled at Amman, was off. Though the White House suggested a "mourning period" as the reason, Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera that the planned summit with Biden was cancelled because "there is no use in talking now about anything except stopping the war".
Biden reportedly broached the topic to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that said that Israel had "categorically and stridently denied" responsibility.
On whether the United States was giving Israel the benefit of the doubt on that denial, Kirby said: "We certainly recognise that they feel very strongly that this was not caused by them." Biden directed his national security team to gather more information about what happened, Kirby said.
Biden has arrived in Israel and will be "asking some tough questions".
However, the shadow of the Gaza hospital blast will hover above his trip. "The timing and optics of such a significant visit couldn’t be any worse," Charles Lister, the director of counterterrorism at the Middle East Institute, told The New York Times. "Whatever the circumstances behind this strike at the hospital in Gaza, it doesn’t really matter at this point. The tensions have been inflamed beyond anything we’ve seen over the last week."
Though Biden's initial plan for the Jordan summit was to ensure humanitarian efforts for Gaza, including aid, and calming the region, the brutal attack has complicated all efforts, making diplomacy harder and drawing critics at home and abroad.
"This sort of murky but horrific event makes diplomacy harder and increases escalation risks," Reuters quoted Richard Gowan, U.N. director at International Crisis Group as saying. "Biden's visit was meant to underline that the U.S. has a grip on the situation. A tragic incident like this shows how hard it is to keep the war in check."
There are also fears that the current situation could complicate efforts by Biden to learn more about the whereabouts of 13 Americans who have been missing since the Oct. 7 attack, reported The New York Times.
Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel now teaching at Princeton, told NYT that the explosion in Gaza put the President "in a situation I’m sure he was hoping not to face, which is walking into an even more catastrophic situation than he already was." "Palestinians and Arabs," he added, "are not going to believe this is not Israel, and perception becomes reality."
Kurtzer said the conversation between Biden and Netanyahu would now become more challenging. "The private agenda gets much tougher," he said. "The message now has to be much more straightforward — 'last week you guys you were the story, now you’re the negative story."
Both the leaders are said to share a deep bond, though they differed over a lot of issues. Biden had earlier influenced the Israeli leader against inflaming or escalating conflicts with the Palestinians.
