The president also planned to meet Israeli first responders and the families of victims killed and hostages taken when Hamas made its incursion into Israel.
Roughly 2,800 Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. Another 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.
Those numbers predate the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday. No clear cause has been established for the blast.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike caused the destruction. The Israeli military denied involvement and blamed a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group.
However, that organisation also rejected responsibility.
Biden said in a statement that he was “outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion at the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, and the terrible loss of life that resulted.”
He also said he “directed my national security team to continue gathering information about what exactly happened.”
Protests swept through the region after the deaths at the hospital, which had been treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many more who were seeking refuge from the fighting.
Hundreds of Palestinians flooded the streets of major West Bank cities including Ramallah. More people joined protests that erupted in Beirut, Lebanon and Amman, Jordan, where an angry crowd gathered outside the Israeli Embassy.
Outrage over the hospital explosion scuttled Biden’s plans to visit Jordan, where King Abdullah II had planned to host meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. But Abbas withdrew in protest, and the summit was subsequently cancelled outright.
Kirby said Jordan had declared three days of mourning after the hospital explosion and that Biden understood the move and was part of a “mutual” decision to call off the Jordan portion of his trip.
He said Biden would have an opportunity to speak to the Arab leaders by phone as he returned to Washington.
Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, told a state-run television network that the war is “pushing the region to the brink”.
Source: CNA
