US President Joe Biden is welcomed by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, as he visits Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

US President Joe Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday, beginning a visit to show solidarity with the Jewish state and confer on the Gaza war.

Descending from the plane amid a large security contingent, Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog on the tarmac.

“Welcome, Mr. President. God bless you for protecting the nation of Israel,” Herzog’s office quoted him as telling Biden.

Netanyahu thanked Biden for his “unequivocal support.”

While in Israel, Biden backed the country’s account that a blast that killed large numbers of Palestinians at a Gaza hospital had been caused by terrorists.

The fireball that engulfed the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital wrecked White House plans for Biden’s emergency diplomatic mission to the Middle East, with Arab leaders calling off their planned summit with the US president in Jordan.

Hamas and other Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast, which they said had killed as many as 500 people.

Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group, citing intelligence and its military analysis of the explosion. The Jewish state later released drone footage of the scene of the hospital explosion, which it said showed it was not responsible because there was no impact crater from any missile or bomb.

The Israeli military published what it said was an audio recording of “communication between terrorists talking about rockets misfiring.”

PIJ, which is based in Gaza and backed by Iran, denied blame.

Speaking alongside Netanyahu, Biden said: “I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”

“But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot, we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” Biden added.

“The world is looking. Israel has a value set like the United States does, and other democracies, and they are looking to see what we are going to do.”

Biden’s trip to the Middle East was supposed to calm the region, even as he demonstrated US support for its ally Israel, which has vowed to annihilate the Hamas terrorist group whose fighters killed 1,400 Israelis in a rampage on Oct. 7.

But after the hospital blast, Jordan cancelled the second half of Biden’s itinerary: a planned summit in Amman with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority.

‘COOL HEADS’

After Biden backed the Israeli account, other Western leaders also called for caution.

“Last night, too many jumped to conclusions around the tragic loss of life at Al Ahli hospital,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly posted on X/Twitter. “Getting this wrong would put even more lives at risk. Wait for the facts, report them clearly and accurately. Cool heads must prevail.”

The blast unleashed new fury on streets across the Middle East, even as Biden sought to calm emotions and prevent the conflict from sweeping across borders.

Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse anti-government protesters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, seat of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, one of the Arab leaders who cancelled meeting Biden.

The US State Department issued a new warning to Americans not to travel to Lebanon, where border clashes between the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group and Israel over the past week have been the deadliest since the last all-out war in 2006.

Biden has strongly backed Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks. But he is under pressure to win a clear Israeli commitment to alleviate the plight of civilians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million Palestinians are under siege.

The Israeli military announced on Wednesday that humanitarian aid would be made available in a “humanitarian zone” in Al-Mawasi on the south of the Gaza Strip coast near the Egyptian border. It did not detail how aid would get there.