Jordan says it canceled a planned summit with US President Joe Biden, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II because it “would not be able to stop the war for now,” accusing Israel of carrying out “massacres.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi says in a statement that “following consultations with our Palestinian and Egyptian brothers, and after a discussion with the United States, we decided not to hold this summit. We aim from this summit, if it is held, to produce one solution that has no other, which is to stop the war, respect the humanity of the Palestinians, and deliver the aid they deserve.”
He also cites a blast at a Gaza City hospital that killed hundreds of people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
“Refraining from holding the summit also due to the ongoing Israeli massacres against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the most recent of which was the Baptist Hospital massacre, which came as a shock to everyone and cannot be tolerated,” he says.
Hamas, the terror group that rules the Strip, blamed an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military says the blast was caused by a rocket misfired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group.
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From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
