Jordan cancels Biden summit after hundreds killed in Gaza hospital blast

Jordan has cancelled a summit it was scheduled to host in Amman today (18) with United States President Joe Biden and the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders to discuss Gaza, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said.

Safadi said the meeting would be held at a time when the parties could agree to end the “war and the massacres against Palestinians”, blaming Israel with its military campaign for pushing the region to “the brink of the abyss”.

Biden was expected to make a whirlwind trip to Israel where he would later head to Jordan and, according to Jordanian officials, meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The US president now will visit only Israel and postpone his travel to Jordan, a White House official said as Biden departed on Tuesday.

Jordan’s King Abdullah would have hosted the four-way summit, which would have on its agenda the need to get humanitarian assistance to Gaza to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and tamper the conflict with Israel.

Abdullah has blamed Israel for a blast at a Gaza hospital that killed about 500 Palestinians on Tuesday, saying it was a “shame on humanity” and called on Israel to immediately end its military assault on Gaza.

Palestinian officials say the explosion was caused by an Israeli air raid. Israeli officials have said the blast was caused when a rocket launched by a Palestinian armed group misfired. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the claims.

King Abdullah warned that Israel’s response following a deadly cross-border attack by Hamas on October 7 that killed and injured more than 1,000 Israelis went beyond the right of self-defence to collective punish all Palestinian civilians.

The cancellation reflects an increasingly volatile situation that will test the limits of US influence in the region as Biden visits Israel today.

(Aljazeera)