Israel is using media and diplomatic channels to try to convince leaders of Arab countries that Tuesday’s blast at a Gaza hospital was caused by a misfiring jihadist missile, after even its regional allies rushed to blame it for the explosion.
Tuesday’s explosion, which killed hundreds, was blamed by Palestinian officials on an Israeli airstrike. Israel said it was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.
Arab state foreign ministries have issued individual statements condemning Israel for the explosion, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which established ties with Israel in the Abraham Accords of 2020.
Morocco, another country that recognised Israel in 2020, also blamed it for the strike, as did Egypt, which became the first Arab country to normalise relations in 1979.
Saudi Arabia, which has ended talks on potential ties with Israel since the Israel-Hamas war flared, called the blast a “heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces”.
The rapid apportioning of blame coincided with angry rallies across the region, with more planned on Wednesday after calls for a “day of rage”. With regional public opinion so inflamed, observers have cautioned that there is a low likelihood of statements being retracted regardless of whether conclusive evidence points to a failed rocket launch being to blame.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation also blamed Israel in a statement released after the 57-member bloc of Muslim-majority countries held an emergency meeting of foreign ministers, while Iran called for “an immediate and complete embargo” on Israel, including oil sanctions, “in addition to expelling Israeli ambassadors if relations with the Zionist regime have been established”.
A mini-summit between Joe Biden and Arab states, as well as the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was due to be held in Amman on Wednesday, but has been cancelled. The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said the summit would be held only “when the decision to stop the war and put an end to [the] massacres” was taken.
Many Gulf leaders are under huge domestic pressure to continue to blame Israel for the blast, and in any case view Israel as being responsible in a wider sense for what they see as an irrefutable, disproportionate use of force in Gaza to clear out Hamas in response to its killing of an estimated 1,200 people in Israel.
Many leaders have little in common with Hamas, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which oppose the Muslim Brotherhood, in which Hamas has its the ideological roots.
The authority of most Gulf monarchies is secure, but they know what they risk if they are seen to be siding with Israel’s version of events at present. The popularity of Abbas, seen as a security subcontractor for Israel by some Palestinians, was already at a low ebb.
A former French ambassador to the US, Gérard Araud, said: “The truth about who was responsible for the Gaza hospital strike is now irrelevant. Public opinion has decided: Israel is the culprit. All the explanations won’t do anything. This is a major defeat for Israel. It will have political consequences.”
Years of patient work trying to build a new relationship between Israel and some Arab states looks set to be undone, a trend that will delight hardliners in Iran, Lebanon and Palestine. Some extremists in the Israeli government also have no interest in a relationship with Arab states if it involves compromise over the Palestinian question.
The Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, issued a warning that he could unleash protests inside Egypt if Israel did not back down. All protests are criminalised by the government.
He again said Israel was seeking to expel Palestinians over the Gaza southern border into the Sinai peninsula and said to Israel: “The Negev Desert [about 4,500 sq miles of land in southern Israel] is before you if you want to displace Palestinian citizens, but not Sinai, and then Sinai will not become a base to attack you and for you to use it as an excuse to attack Egypt.”
He has been demanding Israel allow aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, but only with US-backed Israeli assurances that Israel will not attack the convoys. Israel fears the convoys will contain ammunition for Hamas, a central issue in the talks between Israel and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken.
