Protesters on Wednesday staged anti-Israeli demonstrations around the Middle East, some of them turning violent, to voice rage at an explosion that killed hundreds of Palestinians in the deadliest incident in Gaza of the Israel-Hamas war. Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinian teenagers near Ramallah in the West Bank during protests against Tuesday’s blast at a Gaza hospital, Palestinian officials said. The bloodshed has enraged a region in crisis since Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, carried out a cross-border rampage against communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,400 people were killed and hostages were taken. More than 3,000 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory bombing, Gaza health authorities say.
The Associated Press has the story:
Gaza carnage spreads anger. Protests erupt across Middle East
Newslooks- CAIRO (AP)
Within hours after a blast was said to have killed hundreds at a Gaza hospital, protesters hurled stones at Palestinian security forces in the occupied West Bank and at riot police in neighboring Jordan, venting fury at their leaders for failing to stop the carnage.
A summit planned in Jordan on Wednesday between U.S. President Joe Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was canceled after Abbas withdrew in protest.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spent much of the past week meeting with Arab leaders to try to ease tensions, but those efforts are now in doubt following the hospital blast. The raw nerve of decades of Palestinian suffering, left exposed by U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states, is throbbing once again, threatening broader unrest.
“This war, which has entered a dangerous phase, will plunge the region into an unspeakable disaster,” warned Abdullah, who is among the closest Western allies in the Mideast.
There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the hospital blast. Officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.
The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.
Biden, speaking in Tel Aviv, said the blast appeared to have been caused “by the other team,” not Israel.
But there was no doubt among the Arab protesters who gathered in several countries late Tuesday to condemn what they saw as an Israeli atrocity.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has been under lockdown since a bloody Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas militants ignited the war, protesters clashed with Palestinian security forces and called for the overthrow of Abbas.
Israel and the West have long viewed Abbas as a partner in reducing tensions, but his Palestinian Authority is widely seen by Palestinians as a corrupt and autocratic accomplice to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank.
Jordan, long considered a bastion of stability in the region, has seen mass protests in recent days. Late Tuesday, pro-Palestinian protesters tried to storm the Israeli Embassy.
“They are all normalizing Arab rulers, none of them are free, the free ones are all dead!” one protester shouted. “Arab countries are unable to do anything!”
Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, in the late 1970s. Jordan followed in 1994.
Thousands of students rallied at Egyptian universities on Wednesday to condemn Israeli strikes on Gaza. Protesters in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities chanted “Death to Israel” and “With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice for you, Al-Aqsa,” referring to a contested Jerusalem holy site. A smaller protest was held near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday.
Such protests are rare in Egypt, where authorities have clamped down on dissent for over a decade. But fears that Israel could push Gaza’s 2.3 million residents into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and soaring consumer prices due to runaway inflation, could prove a volatile mix in the country, where a popular uprising toppled a U.S.-backed autocrat in 2011.
Protests also erupted in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has traded fire with Israeli forces at the border, threatening to enter the war with its massive arsenal of rockets. Hundreds of protesters clashed with Lebanese security forces on Wednesday near the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, where riot police lobbed dozens of tear gas cannisters and fired water cannons to disperse demonstrators.
Protests have also been held in Morocco and Bahrain, two countries that forged diplomatic ties with Israel three years ago as part of the Abraham Accords.
“The Arab street has a voice. That voice may have been ignored in the past by governments in the region and the West … but they cannot do this anymore,” said Badr al-Saif, a history professor at Kuwait University. “People are on fire.”
As recently as a couple of weeks ago, the regional outlook seemed far different.
In his address to the U.N. General Assembly last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that the Abraham Accords, in which four Arab states normalized relations with Israel in 2020, were a “pivot of history” that “heralded the dawn of a new age of peace.”
He said Israel was “at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough” — a historic agreement with Saudi Arabia that the Biden administration had been focused on in recent months.
The Abraham Accords, with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, were reached with autocratic leaders willing to set aside the Palestinian issue in order to secure their own benefits from the U.S. The UAE hoped for advanced fighter jets. Morocco won U.S. support for its claim to Western Sahara, and Sudan’s ruling military junta got longstanding U.S. sanctions lifted.
Saudi Arabia had asked for a U.S. defense pact and aid in establishing a civilian nuclear program, as well as a substantial concession to the Palestinians that the Saudis have yet to publicly spell out.
Shimrit Meir, who served as a diplomatic adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, said “time will tell” what impact the war will have on normalization efforts.
“In the short term, they will suffer, especially the hope for a breakthrough” with Saudi Arabia, she said. “In the longer run, Israel’s appeal and value to these countries comes from its military strength. Therefore, the need for it to restore its deterrence is above any other considerations.”
Despite all the high-level diplomacy, ordinary Arabs and Muslims still express strong solidarity with the Palestinian cause. During last year’s World Cup soccer tournament, for example, Palestinian flags were waved in abundance even though the national team did not compete.
The recent devastation in Gaza has stirred those sentiments again.
“The Arab peoples won’t accept such a move. Even the rulers wouldn’t benefit from such ties at this time.”
State-sponsored marches were held across Iran, backer of Hamas and Israel’s sworn foe, with demonstrators carrying banners that read “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
“Every drop of blood of Palestinians killed in this war, brings the Zionist regime (Israel) closer to its downfall,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a televised speech.
In Iraq, about a massive demonstration protested near a bridge which leads to the fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. embassy and other foreign missions.
“Americans must know that their support to the terrorist Israel will bring them defeat and devastation,” said militia member Said Ali Akbar, waving a Palestinian flag.
In Amman, riot police pushed back thousands of Jordanian protesters planning to march on the heavily fortified Israeli embassy. Several police were injured in clashes with protesters who torched property near the Israeli embassy, police said.
“No Zionist embassy on Arab land,” demonstrators chanted in the Jordanian capital after noon prayers.
In Tunis, protesters burned Israeli and American flags and demanded the expulsion of the U.S. and French ambassadors for what they termed their unconditional support for Israel.
“They (Palestinians) have no food or water, and they are getting bombed. This is genocide, not war. This is a crime. We must find a solution,” said Ines Laswed, a demonstrator.
‘REVENGE, REVENGE’
The protesters shouted slogans backing Hamas, including “Revenge … revenge … Oh Hamas, bomb Tel Aviv.”
In Yemen, thousands marched in the capital Sanaa. Mohammed Ali Al-Rammah of the ruling Houthi movement denounced what he called Israeli lies and hatred.
“We will fight you,” he said.
In Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, thousands of people gathered for a protest, waving Hezbollah, Palestinian and Lebanese flags and chanting “Death to America”.
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine told the rally the group was “thousands of times stronger” than before and the U.S., Israel and “malicious Europeans” should be careful.
Saudi Arabia urged its nationals to leave Lebanon citing “current events” in the south of Lebanon, where Hezbollah has been exchanging fire at the border with Israeli forces.
France’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it was advising its citizens against any travel to Lebanon given the security situation, especially at Lebanon’s border with Israel.
Security concerns have risen across much of Europe linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict and to attacks by other Islamist groups such as Islamic State (IS). France says 24 of its citizens were among the 1,400 people killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Italy has stepped up surveillance, especially in crowded areas, and increased protection for sites that might be targets for attacks, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said.
