Biden blames ‘different staff’ for lethal explosion

Keep knowledgeable with free updates

Merely signal as much as the World myFT Digest — delivered on to your inbox.

Joe Biden stated the lethal explosion in a Gaza hospital appeared to have been brought on by Palestinians, not the Israeli navy, as outrage and mutual accusations fanned throughout the Center East.

Showing with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, the US president sided with accounts that blamed the blast on a misfired rocket by Palestinian militants, fairly than an Israeli air strike.

“Based mostly on what I’ve seen, it was completed by the opposite staff, not you,” Biden stated. “However there’s lots of people on the market who aren’t certain. So we’ve acquired to beat plenty of issues.”

Biden’s journey to Israel to point out solidarity with the Jewish state following Hamas’s assault on October 7 has been overshadowed by the explosion on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza Metropolis, which the Palestinian authorities say killed 200 individuals.

After information of the blast broke, Jordan cancelled plans for a summit in Amman resulting from be attended by King Abdullah, Biden, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.

Protests broke out in Ramallah and different elements of the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution and unfold to a number of cities within the area. The blast additionally drew condemnation from Muslim nations, together with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which blamed Israel.

It has not been potential to independently confirm the loss of life toll or the reason for the explosion, one of many bloodiest occasions within the conflict thus far. Learn the newest on Biden’s go to to Israel.

• Biden’s gambit: After the lethal hospital blast, the US president’s whirlwind Center East journey to assist cease the conflict from spreading may backfire.

• Opinion: A human disaster will comply with except hostilities are suspended for the UN to offer assist, write the organisation’s senior humanitarian officers.

• Letter to the FT: Eight authorized figures together with a former president of the UK’s Supreme Courtroom have raised “vital concern” over Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Learn their full letter, which they stated they wrote as Jews and as attorneys.

We’ve additionally launched a devoted WhatsApp channel to carry you every day updates on the conflict. Enroll right here.

Right here’s what else I’m retaining tabs on immediately:

• Firm outcomes: Tesla, Netflix and Morgan Stanley publish their newest outcomes immediately.

• Financial information: US housing begins are forecast to have risen to an annualised price of 1.38mn in September, from 1.28mn in August. The US Federal Reserve will launch an anecdotal evaluation of regional financial circumstances gathered by every central financial institution department often called the Beige E book.

• Financial coverage: Federal Reserve governors Christopher Waller and Lisa Cook dinner and New York Fed president John Williams will every be talking at public occasions.

The primary subject of our Central Banks publication by Chris Giles launched yesterday — learn it right here. Subsequent Wednesday, he will probably be joined by different FT specialists together with Martin Sandbu and Colby Smith as they focus on rate-setters’ capability to forecast and management inflation. Enroll right here totally free.

5 extra prime tales

1. China’s gross home product grew 4.9 per cent yr on yr within the third quarter, beating market expectations as Beijing steps up help for the world’s second-biggest economic system. The economic system expanded 1.3 per cent on a quarterly foundation, China’s Nationwide Bureau of Statistics stated, regaining some momentum after progress of simply 0.5 per cent within the April-June interval. Right here’s extra on China’s newest progress figures.

• Xi-Putin assembly: China’s president lauded document excessive commerce with Russia and pressured his “deep friendship” with Vladimir Putin, because the leaders met in Beijing to reaffirm a partnership that has grown nearer because the Ukraine conflict.

2. Jim Jordan was preventing for his political future final night time, after 20 members of his personal get together voted towards the Donald Trump loyalist in his bid to develop into Speaker of the Home. The Home went into recess instantly after Jordan misplaced the vote as plans for a second poll have been scrapped. One other vote has been scheduled for later immediately. Right here’s the newest.

3. Goldman Sachs reported a 36 per cent drop in third-quarter income, the financial institution’s eighth consecutive quarter of falling earnings, because it grappled with losses following its pullback from retail banking and writedowns on its actual property investments. Nevertheless, Goldman eked out a year-on-year enhance in funding banking revenues. Learn the total story.

4. Starboard Worth has constructed a stake in Information Corp and is pushing for billionaire proprietor Rupert Murdoch to interrupt up the corporate. The activist hedge fund run by Jeff Smith argued at a convention yesterday that Information Corp’s inventory market valuation “doesn’t make sense” and known as for a spin-off of its on-line property listings division. Right here’s extra on Starboard’s plan.

5. Quick-term Treasury yields jumped to their highest stage in 17 years yesterday after stronger than anticipated US retail gross sales information fanned traders’ fears that the Federal Reserve may elevate borrowing prices additional in its combat towards inflation. It ended a interval of respite for bonds over the previous week because the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Hamas spurred demand for secure property akin to Treasuries. Right here’s extra on the renewed sell-off.

The Massive Learn

Javier Milei, a 52-year-old libertarian economist with an outsize tv character and a minimal political profession, has taken swaths of Argentina by storm. Regardless of an eccentric character that has included turns as a tantric intercourse guru and cosplay fanatic, polls make him the slender favorite to win the presidency. What may the novel outsider do in workplace?

We’re additionally studying . . . 

• US overseas coverage: Wars in Europe and the Center East are slowing America’s vaunted pivot to Asia, writes Janan Ganesh.

• Israel-Hamas conflict: Iran is positioning itself to profit from the battle, however there’s a likelihood that Tehran has over-reached, writes the Brookings Establishment’s Suzanne Maloney.

• FTX trial: The New York fraud trial of Sam Bankman-Fried has not solely make clear the chaotic collapse of the crypto trade but in addition on his fateful rivalry with Changpeng Zhao.

Chart of the day

“The world is on fireplace.” With the warmth of 2023, these opening phrases in a G20 report launched final week are greater than figurative, writes Martin Wolf. We’re quick working out of time to resolve immediately’s huge challenges — right here’s how we would finance a quicker shift to a greater world.

Take a break from the information

Former Self-importance Truthful editor Tina Brown made her mark as probably the most well-known, and most feared, journalists of the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. In an interview with the FT, Brown displays on magazines, sexism (she was as soon as known as “Stalin in excessive heels”) and why investigative journalism should be supported. Discover the remainder of our Girls in Enterprise sequence right here.

Extra contributions from Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm