Muslim advocacy group says Biden responsible for Israel's destruction at Al-Shifa Hospital

ANKARA

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights advocacy organization in the US, said President Joe Biden bears responsibility for the destruction and civilian deaths caused by Israeli raids around the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza and its vicinity.

Israeli forces on Monday withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital after a two-week raid that left the major medical complex in ruins.

“Through his unceasing rhetorical, political and military support for the genocidal campaign being carried out by the forces of the far-right Israeli government in Gaza, President Biden bears direct responsibility for the mass slaughter, widespread destruction and torture of civilians at and near Al-Shifa Hospital," Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, said in a statement on Monday.

The official called on Biden to press for an end to what he called "genocide" of Palestinians by Israel.

“He must finally act to end the genocide, ethnic cleansing, wholesale destruction of homes and infrastructure, torture, ‘kill zones,’ and forced starvation that his administration has supported and excused," he said.

'Toothless, useless response'

The organization also condemned the Biden administration's "toothless, useless" response to the Israeli killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers in Gaza earlier this week.

The World Central Kitchen said its convoy was hit while leaving a warehouse in the southern Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid. It has since paused its operations in the region.

"White House spokesman John Kirby, while condemning the massacre, refused to admit that Israel’s actions were deliberate or to change the Biden administration’s policy of sending arms to Israel," CAIR said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The Biden administration should be ashamed of itself for its feckless, toothless and useless response to the Israeli government’s brazen, deliberate murder of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including an American citizen,” said CAIR's National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell.

“This Israeli government massacre of humanitarian aid workers occurred because the Biden administration has spent months making it clear that the United States will not hold Netanyahu’s government accountable for any war crimes it commits," Mitchell added.

"By now calling once again for Israel to investigate itself and preposterously claiming that there’s no evidence of the deliberate targeting of these aid workers as they traveled in three different clearly-marked cars, the Biden administration is giving the Israeli government a green light to kill many more innocent people.”

Israel has waged a military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas which claimed around 1,200 lives.

At least 32,916 Palestinians have since been killed besides causing mass destruction and displacement.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.