Angry protests across Muslim world after Gaza hospital strike

Beirut, Lebanon – AFP

Thousands rallied across the Muslim world on Wednesday to protest the deaths of hundreds of people in a Gaza hospital strike.

Angry crowds gathered after calls from Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Palestinian factions for mass mobilisation.

“Death to America, death to Israel,” hundreds of Hezbollah supporters chanted at a rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

“The Israelis will try to target more hospitals, rescue workers, civil defence volunteers and Gaza’s residents without flinching, in order to push Gaza’s people out,” senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine told the demonstrators.

Protesters took to the streets of the West Bank city of Ramallah and Nablus, shouting “Free, free Palestine”.

Israel and Palestinian fighters have traded blame for the hospital strike late Tuesday.

In Manama, activists gathered in front of the cordoned-off Israeli embassy to call for Bahrain to break off diplomatic ties with Israel.

– “No Zionist embassy on Jordanian land” – 

In war-torn Yemen, demonstrators took part in a massive pro-Palestinian protest in the capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

In Tunisia, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the French embassy, condemning Western support for Israel.

Some waved Palestinian flags while others demanded the ambassador be expelled, accusing France of being among the Western “allies of the Zionists”, AFP journalists reported.

Libya’s Tripoli-based internationally recognised government called the hospital strike a “despicable crime” as several hundred people protested in Tripoli and other Libyan cities.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan also called for region-wide protests on Friday and Saturday, demanding the “expulsion of the ambassadors of the Zionist entity in all Arab and Islamic capitals”.

Some 5,000 Jordanians gathered outside the Israeli embassy, demanding the expulsion of Israel’s diplomatic mission.

Security forces blocked off roads leading to the embassy but the size of the demonstration looked set to swell due to the anger in Jordan, which is home to many Palestinian refugees.

“No Zionist embassy on Jordanian land,” protesters chanted, brandishing Palestinian flags.

Iraq, which also blamed Israeli authorities, demanded an “immediate and urgent resolution” from the UN Security Council to stop Israel’s Gaza onslaught, as hundreds protested in the capital Baghdad, brandishing Palestinian flags.

In the Syrian capital Damascus, hundreds of people with Palestinian flags gathered near parliament.