Biden Visits Israel, Says It's "Not Alone" After Hamas Attack

President Biden landed in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday morning, where he was greeted with an embrace by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Biden was to meet Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders in a show of support amid Israel's war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and his first remarks were a strong show of that support, as he backed Israel's firm denial of responsibility for a deadly explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip.

A second diplomatic stop, when Mr. Biden had been set to meet with Arab leaders in Jordan, was canceled following Tuesday's massive hospital blast in Gaza City, which officials in the Hamas-run territory said had killed at least 500 people.

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The White House had intended Mr. Biden's visit to show the firm U.S. commitment to Israel's right to self defense, and to try to contain quickly escalating tension in the region and prevent the war from spreading, but the hospital blast — which Palestinian leaders and neighboring Arab nations quickly blamed on Israel — severely complicated what was already a challenging diplomatic mission for the veteran statesman.

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Israel's military has vehemently denied responsibility for the hospital explosion, blaming a rocket fired by Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza that it said fell short and hit a parking lot next to the hospital. The U.S. government has not offered its own formal assessment of the evidence in the blast, but Mr. Biden told Netanyahu that "based on what I've seen, it appears it was done by the other team."

Word of the explosion sparked angry demonstrations across the Arab world on Tuesday night, and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Mr. Biden's visit follows a grueling 10-stop, five-day trip to the Middle East by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met for seven hours Monday with Israel's wartime cabinet "to try to work on a framework" to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza, the National Security Council's John Kirby told CBS News.

Relentless Israeli airstrikes and the complete blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed by Israel in the wake of Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 terror attack have driven roughly half of Gaza's 2.3 million residents from their homes and created a humanitarian crisis as food, fuel and water all run desperately short. Palestinian officials said Tuesday that Israel's bombardment of Gaza had killed about 3,000 people and wounded around 12,500 others, a majority of them women and children. 

In Israel, officials say Hamas' attack killed some 1,400 people and wounded 3,500 others. Hamas is said to be holding almost 200 hostages. Thirteen U.S. nationals remain unaccounted for.

At least 31 U.S. citizens are among the dead in Israel, and as many as 600 U.S. nationals are thought to be among the hundreds of thousands of people trapped in Gaza.

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Biden urges "clarity about the objectives" as Israel plans for Gaza invasion

Ahead of a widely-expected Israeli ground invasion to go after Hamas in Gaza, Mr. Biden urged the Israeli nation not to be "consumed" by its well-founded anger.

"Choices are never clear or easy for leadership," Mr. Biden said, adding that global powers must ask themselves "very hard questions" and have "clarity about the objectives" of any action they take, to determine "whether the path you are on will achieve those objectives."

"You are a Jewish state, but you are also a Democracy, and like the United States, you do not live by the rules of terror," Mr. Biden said. "We believe in the fundamental dignity of every human life…. If you give that up, then the terrorists win, and we can never let them win."

Mr. Biden said he was "outraged and saddened by the enormous loss of life" in an explosion Tuesday night at a hospital in Gaza City.

He said earlier that U.S. military data had left him convinced that an Israeli airstrike did not cause the explosion, as claimed by Palestinian factions and some nations in the region, but rather a failed rocket launch by militants inside Gaza. Israel has said they same, accusing the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group of being behind the explosion.

Biden pushes Israeli leaders to "get trucks moving across the border" with aid for Gaza

President Biden said Wednesday that he had pushed Israeli leaders to facilitate an opening of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to enable humanitarian goods into the Palestinian territory after 12 days of airstrikes and a total Israeli blockade.

"Today I asked the Israeli cabinet to increase the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza." 

He said when the first aid convoy would actually make it across the border from Egypt into the Gaza Strip was "a practical matter," but added that the U.S. was working in close cooperation with regional partners "to get trucks moving across the border as soon as possible."

Mr. Biden said the "vast majority of the Palestinian people are not Hamas" and he reiterated his previous comments that the U.S.-designated terror group which has controlled the small strip of land for almost two decades "does not represent the Palestinian people."

He warned Hamas against trying to disrupt or steal the aid convoys from Egypt, saying if they did so, it would "demonstrate once again that they do not have the wellbeing of the Palestinian people" in their minds.

Biden tells Israelis "you are not alone," says securing release of hostages held by Hamas is top priority

President Biden said his primary message to Israel as he visited the Jewish state 12 days after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched its brutal terror attack was: "You are not alone."

Giving remarks in Tel Aviv after meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials, he lamented the bloody attack on Israel and vowed that the world would "not stand by again and do nothing," as he said it had done when Jews were slaughtered ahead of World War II.

Mr. Biden said there was "no higher priority" for him than securing the release of the roughly 200 hostages held by Hamas.