US PRESIDENT Joe Biden is convinced that the announcement made about the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) at the G20 leaders' summit in New Delhi in India in September was one of the reasons why Palestinian militant outfit Hamas launched a terrorist strike on Israel.
The IMEEC is supposed to integrate the regions with a network of railroads.
Israel launched a massive counter-offensive against Hamas after unprecedented attacks by the militant group on October 7 killed more than 1,400 people. Biden, however, told reporters at a joint news conference in Washington with the visiting Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese that his analysis is based on his instinct and does not have any proof for this.
“I'm convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they did, and I have no proof of this, just my instinct tells me, is because of the progress we were making towards regional integration for Israel, and regional integration overall. We can't leave that work behind,” the president, who was in India for the G20 summit, said.
This is the second time in less than a week that Biden has mentioned the IMEEC as a potential reason for the terrorist attack by Hamas. The new economic corridor, which many see as an alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative, was jointly announced by the leaders of the US, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
The corridor comprises an eastern corridor connecting India to the Gulf region and a northern corridor connecting the Gulf region to Europe.
Biden, who visited Israel and Jordan in the wake of the deadly conflicts, said in the past few weeks, he has spoken to leaders throughout the region, including the king of Jordan, president of Egypt, president of the Palestinian National Authority and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, about making sure there's real hope in the region for a better future about the need to work toward a greater integration for Israel while insisting that the aspirations of the Palestinian people will be part of that future as well.
(With PTI inputs)
Army personnel stand amid the rubble following an explosion inside the police headquarters at Kohat in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on September 18, 2026. An explosion at a historic police headquarters in northern Pakistan on September 18 killed at least eight people and wounded 35 more, officials said, with the country's president swiftly blaming a militant group. Getty Images
Mourners read the holy Quran while sitting around the grave of a paramilitary personnel of the Frontier Corps (FC) who was killed during the Afghanistan-Pakistan border clashes, in Kohat on October 17, 2025. A ceasefire along the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan was holding on October 16, officials on both sides said, after dozens of troops and civilians were killed in cross-border clashes.Getty Images
