Hundreds Die In Gaza Hospital Attack, Biden Visits Israel, Arab Protests
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Hundreds of people are dead after explosion at a hospital in gazza.

Palestinian officials bring israel for the deadly incident, but israel says IT was a terror group.

So who is actually to blame? L N N is first from your news. President I arrived in israel this morning.

There he met with prime minister Benjamin net in yahoo. Biden wants to show solidarity for israel and prevent any further escalates. Can he do that while also pleading for more humAnitary assistant and .

propane stine ian. Protests have erupted across the middle east following the hospital bombing and gaza. Jordan's foreign minister says the war between israel and hamas is pushing the region to the stay with us. We will give you the news. You need to start your day.

Israeli import tinian authorities are trading blame over just who is responsible for the strike that killed hundreds at a .

hospital in gaza. Doctors, they are, tell npr they are still uncovering more bodies this morning. The incident has also had to as sive protests across much of the world.

join us. What the latest is, npr, roth, sherlock from television. And i'm going to let you know that from what I understand, some of the details will be very disturbing for some to hear. Root, that being said, what are you hearing about the attack?

Good morning. Well, yeah, this was a massive explosion at the backed al athi hospital, is a Christian hospital and one of the oldest in gaza. I reached up to fatal name.

So he's the orthopedic, the head of the author peedee unit there. And he's still there because he says that there are injured patients that still need to be evacuated. He was in the Operating room when he heard this huge explosion and people flooded in, wounded. It's a bad phone line, but he tells me he ran outside and found the area full .

of injured and dead, injured.

He said some people died in his hands in, many had lost limbs, and the doctors were using whatever they had on them, bandage ages their clothes to try to stop the bleedings. And like you said, you know, we don't know the full death toll, but IT seems in the many hundreds. Doctor nye says they're still finding new debt, including bodies flagg in the force of the blast onto the roof of the hospital.

A baby? Yeah, many did. Many do.

So i'm says the strike on the hospital hit this in a courtroom that had become an area that was also housing hundreds of people that have been displaced by the wider fighting in gaza. IT was full of families, he said. Many children, he says, with this being a hospital in a Christian one, that people believe that IT was maybe the safest place.

Gather groth, what do we know about just who is responsible for this? Well.

you know, like you said, both sides are trading blame. Israel says IT was the result of a failed rocket launched by palestinian islamic jd. Israeli defense forces are putting out some footage and a recording they claim as a conversation between a hmas sand palestinian islamic jd official allegedly talking about the misfire.

But I should say a really clearly, npr cannot independently verify any of this. And we do know from past wars that there have been palestinian rockets that have fAllen short inside gaza, but at the very same time, you know, this hospital said just a few days ago that he was hit by israeli rocket fire just a few days ago. And this is all happening amid intense fighting. You know, there's three thousand palestinian people killed, according to the palestinian ry of health, one thousand those kids, ten thousand people have been wounded.

So what I mean, of course, you've been reporting on and you, among others, have been reporting on just the humAnitarian situation there before this attacks. So I can only imagine that this that this terrible incident is just adding even more pressure to the humAnitarian, an needs there, right?

One of the head of the main hospital says that, you know, l SHE fast is they're onna run out of fuel today. Taps are also running, drying gaza, because there's no fuel for d salad nation plants. People are struggling to find drinking water.

Much of the population is fleeing south, but with nowhere to go. The broader with the egypt is still closed. And gardens I speak with say, at this point, nowhere feels safe.

That is mp. s. ruth. Show luck you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Roof is in television, and president biden has just landed there. And this comes as protest against israel's action spread across the deal.

The protests were Sparked by a deadly explosion at a hospital in gaa. He had a call off of visit Jordan and this message in television be much more about safeguarding .

civilians in gaza. We israel has a value set like the united states and other democracies and and they're looking to see what we're going to do in paris.

Michelle comment is with us now from i'm on Jordan to talk about the trip she's been traveling with secretary of state anthy blinken. Michelle, good morning.

Good morning, Michelle.

What is the us saying about that explosion will present?

Biden said he's deeply sent by the death toll but he said that judging from what he's seen and these were his words, IT was done by the other team, not you. He said that while he was sitting alongside israeli prime minister Benjamin to ahoo, as you heard from ruth, israeli officials say that this was a rocket launched ed by palestinian islamic jd.

The palestinians say IT was an israeli airstrike in their demanding and end to the israeli bombardment. You also have the U. N.

Condemn this attack and calling for humAnitary arian POS. Up to now, the us. Has not pushed for a ceasefire.

U. S. Officials say israel has the right to go after hamas. After that unprecedented attack a week and and a half ago, nein yahoo called the attack pure evil and said, the world should unite behind israel to defeat.

not to minimize in any way the atrocities committed in bhamo and so in israeli weekend a half ago. But the situation inside gaza is indeed terrible. What is presented by them and other western leaders saying about that are trying to do about that.

Yeah, secretary blinking has been in the region. And in the run up to this visit to israel, he's been trying to negotiate a deal with israelis to allow aid and to gaza and to set up safe areas for civilians. There's a lot of pressure now on the us.

And israel to make that a reality. But remember, gaza is a tiny territory with two million palestinians, and there's really nowhere safe to go, as we've been hearing in our reports, most people don't have access to water, electricity, their desperate for help. Israel has been blocky aid, fearing that IT will be stolen by humor benefit homos, which, by the way, is still holding nearly two hundred israeli hostages, including some americans. And that machine is adding just another layer of complexity to all of this.

As I mentioned, that you are in Jordan, which has been a very close arab ally of the united states. What are you hearing there? And what are the other arab states saying about this conflict?

Well, egyptian president told secretary blink in a few days ago that he thinks israel has exceeded its right to self defense, that this is now looking like collective punishment against the palestinian people. He was due to come here to Jordan to meet with president biden, along with Jordan's king of dollar and palestinian authority president mark mood to boss. That summit has now been called off because of the explosion at the hospital.

A boss who has a house here in Jordan return to rama in the west bank, where there have been protest against him and against the israeli campaign and gaza. Things are really, really tense. Now.

what does present but and think he can accomplish that?

He's really trying to contain this conflict. But there are a lot of concerns about the violence spreading, not only concerns about his belan lebanon on to the north of israel, but also about these growing protests in the region. That is imperious.

Michelle callin, she's travelling with the secret, the U. S. Secret of state, and she's an amon jord machine. L, thank you.

Thank you.

As machine just mentioned, the bombing of the hospital in gaza has Sparked fury across the arab world.

And among Jordan, security forces tear gas protesters trying to reach the israeli embassy.

And that is where we have emps chain, a raf chain. Good morning to you.

Good morning.

You were at the protest. Can you tell what you saw?

sure. When I got there, people were leaving because security forces were pushing them out, but there are still about a thousand people, most of the Young men wearing palestinian flags. The tear gas was hanging in the air, and the ambuLances were coming and going.

The right police had kept the protesters away from the embassy, which is, as you would imagine, heavily fortified, but not before some of them set fired. Some tired in nearby. Now, protests here aren't unusual.

The majority of Jordanians are originally palestinian. Their families were forced from their homes in the west bank during the war with israel and among east bank to organize. There's a strong affinity for the palestine, an cause. But this protest felt different. I spoke to one of the protesters on our twenty two year old engineering .

student who told me why he had come .

and came .

to the there.

He's talking about what he thought biden would accomplish if he came here. But he also said that he was spurred to come because he saw the bombing of the hospital in gaza on TV, which is a big reason. A lot of them came.

Another Young man told me he and his friends came because the world had forgotten about palestinians. And that's a key part of the anger here. There are millions of palestinian refugees who have languaged for decades, and there's a feeling that I can go on like this.

But how is that? The government of Jordan .

responding well. They're deeply worried, as you saw with the cancellation of the summer with president biden. And here's what they're worried about.

Mostly it's that having taken in waves of refugees from palestine and other places, they fear that more palestinian refugees could be pushed into Jordan because their husband and israeli thought to that perhaps Jordan is the alternate palestine, which, of course, a Jordan rejects and palestinians reject. Egypt has much the same fears, by the way, IT fears that palestinians from gaza would be pushed into egypt. And that's basically the bottom line.

So what you have are people who are trapped with nowhere to go, and countries that want to help them but can't take any more of them. They also don't want to see palestinians giving up their land that would make even harder, make IT even harder for them to come back. And I think we also need to say that both egypt and Jordan, like a lot of countries in the region, they're having tough times to begin with, severe economic hardship, widespread discontent.

What about elsewhere in the art world?

Well, in romola, as we heard my mood, a bus, the peltin authority president, returned to be greeted by hundreds of protesters. And it's a sign that although the the catalyst for the protest last night were what's happening and gas in the hospital bombing, there's also a vein of all sorts of other resentments. This one, lack of leadership, and people are using the opportunity I to come out and show their anger.

That is in here. Jane are jane. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And that's up first for wednesday, october eighteen th.

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