Joe Biden has presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that Hamas represents a continuing threat to Israel and that Israeli forces were seeking to avoid civilian casualties.
After a summit meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the Apec summit in San Francisco, Biden told reporters on Wednesday night that Hamas had pledged to continue its attacks on Israel.
Biden also argued that Israeli forces had switched from aerial bombardment, which he seemed to acknowledge had been indiscriminate in parts, to more targeted ground operations, after more than 11,000 Palestinians are reported to have died.
He said: “It is not carpet bombing. This is a different thing. They’re going through these tunnels, they’re going into the hospital. They’re also bringing in incubators or bringing in other means to help people in the hospital, and they’ve given, I’m told, the doctors and nurses and personnel the opportunity to get out of harm’s way. So this is a different story than I believe it was occurring before, the indiscriminate bombing.”
Biden added: “The IDF … acknowledge they have an obligation to use as much caution as they can in going after their targets. It’s not like they’re rushing to the hospital knocking on doors, you know, pulling people aside and shooting people indiscriminately.”
Biden repeated a claim he made last month that babies had been beheaded in the Hamas attack.
“Hamas has already said publicly that they plan on attacking Israel again like they did before, cutting babies’ heads off, burning women and children alive,” he said. “So the idea that they’re going to just stop and not do anything is not realistic.”
The White House clarified last month that US officials had not seen evidence of this and that Biden was referring to news reports. It was not immediately clear if new intelligence had emerged confirming such actions.
Reports that Hamas beheaded babies in the 7 October attack on Israeli civilians remain unconfirmed but the brutality of the massacre in which about 1,200 people were killed is not in doubt. The Israeli military made the claim in the first few days after 7 October.
Biden also suggested that a possible hostage deal was imminent, saying the Israelis had agreed to a “pause” as part of the deal, but then stopped short, appearing to acknowledge the uneasiness of the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, finally adding: “I’m mildly hopeful.”
On Thursday morning, the IDF said Israeli fighter jets had struck the house of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza. In a social media post that included a video said to show the strike, the IDF said the home “was used as terrorist infrastructure and a meeting point for Hamas’s senior leaders to direct terrorist attacks against Israel”.
Israeli police said on Thursday that they had shot and “neutralised” a suspect in a shooting attack at the Tunnels checkpoint between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, adding that large forces were deployed to the scene.
Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza, residents told the Associated Press on Thursday, signalling a possible expansion of operations to areas where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded.
The leaflets, dropped in areas east of the southern town of Khan Younis, warned civilians to evacuate the area and said anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions “is putting his life in danger”.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Wednesday that the ground operation would eventually “include both the north and south. We will strike Hamas wherever it is.”
The UN security council backed a resolution on Wednesday calling for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses for [a] sufficient number of days to allow aid access” into Gaza.
The resolution, the first to be adopted after four previous failures, calls for humanitarian corridors across the Gaza Strip and urges the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
The US and the UK, two potentially veto-wielding powers, abstained on the grounds that although they supported the emphasis on humanitarian relief, they could not give their full support because it contained no explicit criticism of Hamas.
It is the first UN resolution on the Israel-Palestine conflict since 2016.
In an address to the security council in effect announcing that Israel would not abide by the resolution, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, said: “This council has just adopted a resolution that is regretfully detached from the reality on the ground. This council … still has not succeeded in condemning Hamas’s 7 October massacre. The resolution focuses solely on the humanitarian situation in Gaza [and] makes no mention of what led up to this moment.
“Israel does not need a resolution to remind us to adhere to international law. Israel always adheres to international law. Bringing our hostages home is Israel’s top priority. Israel will continue to do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal.”
UN resolutions are in theory legally binding but are widely ignored, and the political significance lies in the US’s willingness to back a call for an extended humanitarian ceasefire.
The resolution came amid condemnation of Israel’s decision to send troops into al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, marking an escalation of Israel’s offensive against Hamas.
“Hospitals are not battlegrounds,” said the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We’ve lost touch again with health personnel at the hospital. We’re extremely worried for their and their patients’ safety.”
Late on Wednesday, the IDF released a video that it said showed some of the material recovered from a building in the large hospital complex, including automatic weapons, grenades, ammunition and flak jackets.
Lt Col Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesperson, said in the video: “These weapons have absolutely no business being inside a hospital.”
Hamas denied the claim, which it said was “nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.
On Wednesday evening, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said troops had found weapons, combat gear and technological equipment at al-Shifa, and were continuing their search of the complex.
Israel has so far presented in public only limited evidence in support of its claim that a command complex lies under al-Shifa. It is widely accepted that Hamas has an extensive tunnel network across Gaza.
Additional reporting by Emine Sinmaz and Jason Burke in Jerusalem, and Patrick Wintour
