President Joe Biden’s efforts to tamp down tensions in the escalating war between Israel and Hamas faced massive setbacks even before he departed for the Middle East on October 17, as Jordan called off the President's planned summit with Arab leaders after a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital killed hundreds.
The postponement of the Amman summit comes after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas withdrew from the scheduled meetings in protest of the attacks, which the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza blamed on an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said it had no involvement and pinned the blame on a misfired Palestinian rocket.
“This war and this aggression are pushing the region to the brink,” Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s Foreign Minister, told al-Mamlaka TV, a state-run network. He said Jordan would only host the summit when all participants agreed on its purpose, which would be to “stop the war, respect the humanity of the Palestinians, and deliver the aid they deserve.”
