Operation Swords of Iron: What happened on Day 12?

US President Joe Biden pledged to do everything possible to secure the release of over 200 people held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, including some US citizens.

“There is no higher priority than the release and safe return of all these hostages,” Biden said during a one-day solidarity mission to Israel.

US President Joe Biden will pose "tough questions" in meetings with Israeli leaders during a Middle East trip that has been upended by a strike on a Gaza hospital on Tuesday.

Biden is flying to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and show US support in the aftermath of an attack on Israeli villages and military bases by Gaza-based Hamas that killed hundreds of people on October 7.

Biden will meet with Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet and seek a sense of Israel's plans and objectives in the days and weeks ahead, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Air Force One during the flight to Tel Aviv.

"He'll be asking some tough questions, he'll be asking them as a friend, as a true friend of Israel, but he'll be asking some questions of them," Kirby said.

US President Joe Biden canceled his planned trip to Jordan on Wednesday after Jordan canceled a summit that Biden was set to attend in Amman, a White House official said.

Biden was expected to meet the Arab leaders following a solidarity visit to Israel.

Jordan had canceled a summit it was to host in Amman on Wednesday with US President Joe Biden and the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders to discuss the situation in Gaza, the country's foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said.

Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera the Amman summit is canceled as “there is no use in talking now about anything except stopping the war.”

Lebanon's Hezbollah denounced what the group said was Israel's deadly attack on a Gaza hospital and called for "a day of unprecedented anger" on Wednesday, as protests erupted outside the US embassy in Beirut just hours after the incident.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006, made the call for the day of protest in Beirut in a statement late on Tuesday after Palestinian officials said hundreds of people were killed in the strike on the hospital.

Israel's military denied responsibility for the bombing, saying military intelligence suggested the hospital was hit by a failed rocket launch by the enclave's Palestinian Islamic Jihad military group.

The IDF confirmed late Tuesday night that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad failed rocket attack damaged a Gaza hospital, leading to a still-unclear number of deaths.

The army spokesperson gave a press conference declaring that "an analysis of IDF operational systems indicates a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity, to the hospital at the time it was hit. Intelligence from a few sources that we have in our hands indicates that the Islamic Jihad is responsible."

IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari confirms: Islamic Jihad is responsible for the rocket that hit the hospital in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Tssfl5M7Ew

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 17, 2023

The office also told Israeli media that Israel is in possession of audio recordings in which Islamic Jihad members say out loud that they are responsible for the explosion.