The White House announced Wednesday that President Joe Biden will "address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia’s ongoing brutal war against Ukraine," in a televised address from the Oval Office at Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.
Biden pledged to help Israel and the Palestinians during a lightning visit on Wednesday, but a deadly hospital blast that he ascribed to an errant rocket fired by Gaza militants derailed talks to prevent the war spreading.
Raising fears of wider instability, protesters staged anti-Israeli demonstrations around the Middle East over the fireball that engulfed the Gaza Strip's Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital late on Tuesday, which Palestinian officials said killed 471 people.
They blamed what they said was an Israeli air strike, while Israel said it was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied responsibility.
Biden promised more aid to Israel at the end of his impromptu one-day visit to the country, which is bombarding Gaza to try to root out militants from its ruling Hamas group after they killed 1,400 Israelis in a cross-border assault on Oct. 7.
He said of the hospital blast: "Based on the information we have seen today, it appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza."
In Washington, the White House National Security Council echoed Biden, saying the U.S. assessment was based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information.
Arab leaders responded to the loss of life at the hospital, which they blamed on Israel, by cancelling a summit with Biden in Jordan.