President Biden told reporters Wednesday that Palestinian terrorists have “gotta learn how to shoot straight” — one day after an explosion outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip.
“I’m not suggesting that Hamas deliberately did it,” the president said at Ramstein Air Base in Germany en route back to Washington after visiting Israel earlier in the day.
“It’s that old thing: Gotta learn how to shoot straight,” Biden went on.
“It’s not the first time that Hamas has launched something that didn’t function very well.”
Hamas, which rules Gaza, claimed Tuesday that an Israeli airstrike killed about 500 people at the hospital — sparking riots across the Middle East and forcing Biden to scrap a planned summit with Arab leaders in Amman, Jordan — but the White House said Wednesday it had determined the explosion was caused by a misfire on the Palestinian side.
The Israeli government on Tuesday night blamed the Hamas-allied group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, publishing intercepted phone calls and other evidence to support the claim.
“I don’t know all the detail, but I do know the people at the Defense Department who I respect and the intelligence community that I respect, say it is highly improbable that Israel did that,” Biden said on Air Force One.
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Israel-Hamas war: How we got here
2005: Israel unilaterally withdraws from the Gaza Strip more than three decades after winning the territory from Egypt in the Six-Day War.
2006: Terrorist group Hamas wins a Palestinian legislative election.
2007: Hamas seizes control of Gaza in a civil war.
2008: Israel launches military offensive against Gaza after Palestinian terrorists fired rockets into the town of Sderot.
2023: Hamas launches the biggest attack on Israel in 50 years, in an early-morning ambush Oct. 7, firing thousands of rockets and sending dozens of militants into Israeli towns.
Terrorists killed more than 1,200 Israelis, wounded more than 4,200, and took at least 200 hostage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to announce, “We are at war,” and vowed Hamas would pay “a price it has never known.”
The Gaza Health Ministry — which is controlled by Hamas — reported at least 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,500 injured since the war began.
The president spent several hours visiting Tel Aviv earlier Wednesday in a show of support for Israel against Hamas after the terrorist group slaughtered 1,400 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
But the president set off fresh criticism from Republicans by announcing $100 million in humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territories, including the approximately 2 million residents of Gaza, which Israel is preparing to invade.
Biden also said he wanted Congress to approve an “unprecedented” amount of military aid for Israel — while calling on Israeli leaders not be driven by “rage” when going into Gaza, noting that America had made “mistakes” in its own foreign wars following 9/11.
