(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden and the Israeli military said Wednesday that intelligence, satellite imagery and an audio recording point to a Palestinian militant group as being responsible for the explosion of a Gaza hospital.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said the evidence presented “won’t make a difference” in the eyes of people who have already drawn their own conclusions.
“They say a lie is halfway around the world before the truth puts on its shoes,” Friedman said Wednesday on “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.”
The cause of the explosion Tuesday evening was unclear, but Israel and Hamas blamed each other.
Biden waded into that debate when he landed in Israel, telling reporters that the United States has concluded it was likely “the other team” — meaning, not the Israeli military — that was responsible for the explosion.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry initially said there were more than 500 killed, but the death toll was revised downward Wednesday to 471.
The explosion and claims from Hamas that Israel was responsible sparked protests across the Middle East.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has warned the war was “pushing the region to the brink.” After the hospital blast, Jordan canceled a meeting between Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the Palestinian and Egyptian presidents.
“There is no appetite in any of these areas to really understand what really happened. They have their narrative and want to stick with it,” Friedman said.
While Israel denied involvement in the blast, it took the military hours to do so and even longer to show proof it was Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group operating in Gaza.
“I would have acted faster. I think it would have been helpful to act faster, but it didn’t matter. Within an hour, it was too late. This took over the area so quickly,” Friedman said. “Even now, tomorrow, the next day, with all the evidence, you go into Egypt, go into Jordan, you go into Gaza, you go into the West Bank and you show, it won’t make a difference.”
Hamas called Tuesday’s hospital blast “a horrific massacre,” saying an Israeli strike caused it. Islamic Jihad accused Israel of trying “to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.”
Biden announced Wednesday that an agreement has been reached to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt. But it will stop flowing if Hamas intercepts it.
As civilians in northern Gaza move south, both Egypt and Jordan have said they won’t take in Palestinian refugees.
NewsNation reporter Zaid Jilani and The Associated Press contributed to this report.