Joe Biden has told Israelis not to make the “mistakes” that the US did after the September 11 2001 terror attacks, as he warned its citizens not to be “consumed” by hate over the Hamas assault that killed more than 1,400 people.
He said after 9/11 the US was “enraged”, in a reference to the US invasion that saw hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in the Second Gulf War.
“While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes,” the US president said in a powerful speech in Tel Aviv.
He also said the Hamas attack brought “back memories of the Holocaust”, and compared Israel’s devastation to the aftermath of 9/11, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
Mr Biden blamed an “errant rocket” fired from Gaza for an explosion last night on a hospital feared to have killed hundreds of people, saying his information was based on US defence department sources.
Hamas blamed the hospital blast on an Israeli air strike; Israel said the fire was caused by a failed rocket launched from within the enclave by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.