Washington DC:

US President Joe Biden claimed he received "no pushback" from Israeli authorities regarding his promise to provide $100 million in humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza and the West Bank. Following his visit to Israel, Biden told reporters at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, "I got no pushback. Virtually none!”

During his time in Israel on Wednesday, Biden met with Israeli officials and declared a $100 million pledge in humanitarian aid for the residents of Gaza and the West Bank.

The president said he had faith in the Defence Department's intelligence assessment that the Tuesday explosion at a hospital was the result of terrorists, not Israel. Hamas claimed that an Israeli bombardment caused the explosion at the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. A four-way summit between Biden and regional leaders in Jordan was postponed as a result of the announcement, which was widely condemned in the Arab world.

Israel came to the conclusion that the misfired rocket from the Palestinian terrorist organization Islamic Jihad in Gaza was to blame for the incident. “It’s not the first time Hamas has launched something that didn’t function,” the president said.

Both Hamas and Israel are blaming each other for the explosion at the hospital, which claimed at least 500 and fuelled outrage across the Arab world.

The al-Ahali Hospital in Gaza City may not have been directly hit by a rocket on Tuesday, according to an online video that has gone viral on social media; rather, it appears that the missile hit a nearby parking lot. This has given rise to many conflicting claims about who fired the rocket, where it hit, and how many people were killed.

An IDF spokesperson claimed in a tweet on Israel's X account that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket had damaged the Christian hospital in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Biden that Israel will not allow humanitarian aid, including food and medicines to the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas still has the hostages.

Meanwhile, the United States Navy is also sending another warship to the eastern Mediterranean as tensions in the Middle East rise amid the Israel-Hamas war. The USS Mount Whitney left Gaeta, Italy, on Wednesday in support of US operations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.