American “data” exonerates Israel, according to Biden – L’Express

While this war provoked by the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli soil on October 7 has already left more than 4,000 dead on both sides, the majority of them civilians, a rocket attack on a Palestinian hospital in Gaza killed several hundred people, Tuesday October 17. A deadly strike unanimously denounced by the international community, at a time when the American president is in Israel.

US President Joe Biden said this Wednesday that “data” shown by his team regarding a strike on the compound of a hospital in Gaza exonerated Israel, accused by Palestinian Hamas of being responsible. author.

Asked by journalists why he did not believe that Israel was responsible for the strike, the American president referred to “data shown by (his) Department of Defense”, during a visit to Israel intervening the day after this shooting which left hundreds dead.

While Israel is designated by Hamas and many neighboring countries as guilty of this strike, the Israeli army repeated this Wednesday that it had “evidence” of the responsibility of the Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad, without presenting it for the moment.

“The evidence, which we share with all of you, confirms that the explosion in a hospital in Gaza was caused by the firing of a failed Islamic Jihad rocket,” said the same military spokesperson Daniel Hagari during ‘a press conference. For its part, Hamas accused Washington of being “complicit in the Israeli massacres” in Gaza.

Israel announced on Wednesday that it was authorizing the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip from Egypt, while it imposed a strict siege on the Palestinian territory, which has been relentlessly shelled since the bloody Hamas attack on October 7.

“Israel will not prevent humanitarian aid from Egypt as long as it involves food, water and medicine for the civilian population in the south of the Gaza Strip,” according to a statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who specifies that Israel “will not authorize any humanitarian aid from its territory to the Gaza Strip” as long as the hostages taken by Hamas “are not returned”.

Twenty-four French people have been killed and seven are still missing, “several probably held hostage” in the Gaza Strip by Hamas since the unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement launched on October 7 against Israel, Elisabeth announced this Wednesday Thick headed.

Paris has also repatriated 3,500 French people from Israel. “By this evening we will have allowed 3,500 of our fellow citizens to join France,” said the Prime Minister in front of the Senate, during the government questions session. A debate will be organized “next week” in Parliament “on the situation in the Middle East”, also indicated Elisabeth Borne.

The American Department of the Treasury announced this Wednesday a series of sanctions targeting around ten “key members of Hamas”, agents or people participating in the financing of the Palestinian Islamist group, based in Gaza and in countries such as Sudan, Turkey and Qatar.

“The United States is taking swift and decisive action to target Hamas’s financiers and supporters following the brutal and unconscionable massacre of Israeli civilians, including children,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. reference to the deadly Hamas attack on October 7 on Israeli territory.

The United States, France, Germany, Spain and the European Union have condemned the attack on the Gaza hospital. “All the facts must be established and those responsible will be held to account,” added European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to the European Parliament on Wednesday.

The strike is a “tragedy,” Vladimir Putin declared Wednesday during an official visit to China. “It’s a horrible event, hundreds of dead and injured. It’s a humanitarian catastrophe. I really hope that this will be a signal showing that we must end this conflict as quickly as possible,” said the Russian president during a press conference. “China is shocked by the heavy losses caused by the attack on a hospital in Gaza and strongly condemns it,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry wrote in a statement, calling for an “immediate ceasefire”.

The situation in the Gaza Strip is “becoming out of control” due to a lack of humanitarian aid ready to be delivered there, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday on the X network (formerly Twitter).

“Every second we wait for medical help, we lose lives,” posted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, pointing out that medical supplies have been blocked for four days at the Egypt-Gaza border. “We need immediate access to start delivering these vital products,” insisted Dr Tedros.

Like many other heads of UN agencies and NGOs or states, he is calling for the opening of the Rafah border post. For days, tons of aid have been blocked in the Egyptian Sinai desert while Rafah is closed on the Palestinian side, after four bombings this week.

For his part, Egyptian President and autocrat Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned Wednesday against a massive exodus of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt, seeing it as a first step before “a similar movement from the West Bank to the Jordan”.

While the Egyptian head of state denied having “closed the Rafah crossing” between his country and Gaza, instead denouncing “Israeli bombings”, he subsequently accused Israel of pushing the Palestinians to leave their land. “A way to put an end to the Palestinian cause at the expense of neighboring countries,” added Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.

He also warned that “if I ask the Egyptian people to come out into the streets, there will be millions of them to support Egypt’s position”, referring to “Arab opinion” sensitive to “the Palestinian cause which is the greatest causes”.

The United States on Tuesday authorized the departure of its non-essential personnel, as well as their families, from its embassy in Beirut in the face of the deterioration of security conditions in Lebanon in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas. At the same time, the United States raised the alert level of its travel advisory from 3 to 4 (the highest), advising all American nationals not to travel to Lebanon.

Several other Western countries, including France, Canada, Australia and Sweden, have in recent days advised their nationals not to travel to Lebanon due to fear of a regional conflagration. Hundreds of demonstrators also demonstrated Tuesday evening in front of the French and British embassies in Tehran, Iran, following the attack on a hospital in Gaza that same day.