2023-10-18 08:06:28
Tension in the Middle East rose a notch last night. After the announcement of the bombing of a hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening, where a majority of civilians were present, demonstrations broke out during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in Iran, Jordan, Tunisia, Lebanon and even in Morocco. In all, thousands of people gathered to protest Israel and international support for it, sometimes attacking embassies.
At least 200 people were killed Tuesday in the shooting on the Gaza hospital compound, according to the Health Ministry of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which blamed Israel for the strike. The Israeli army, for its part, attributed the strike to a failed rocket attack by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization, an ally of Hamas.
Israel and the United States targeted
In Amman (Jordan), dozens of demonstrators tried to enter the grounds of the Israeli embassy in Amman on Tuesday evening. They managed to bypass the security forces barrier and advance towards the building compound. The police had to fire tear gas to disperse them. At the same time, the Jordanian government canceled the quadripartite summit which was to take place in the Jordanian capital. It will be held “when the decision to stop the war and put an end to these massacres is taken”.
In Lebanon, clashes broke out between Lebanese security forces and demonstrators gathered in front of the United States embassy in Awkar, in the northern suburbs of the capital Beirut. They chanted “death to America” and “death to Israel.” In photos, we can see a fire behind the gates of the American embassy, while demonstrators are gathered in front.
In the process, the United States on Tuesday authorized the departure of non-essential personnel, as well as their families, from its embassy in Beirut in the face of deteriorating security conditions. Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, called for a “day of anger” to be observed on Wednesday to condemn the shooting against the hospital, a “massacre” of which it accuses Israel: “May tomorrow, Wednesday, be a day of anger against enemy “.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has called for a “day of rage” to condemn a strike on a Gaza Strip hospital as hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the French and US embassies in protesthttps://t.co/q8B7AZVNU1
A fire burns behind the gates of the US embassy in Awkar… pic.twitter.com/sS20x99dsG
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) October 18, 2023
In the evening, a large crowd also gathered in front of the Israeli consulate in Istanbul (Turkey), with raised fists, shouting “Allahu akbar!” » (God is great!), reported the official Anadolu news agency. A similar demonstration simultaneously brought together some 500 people in front of the Hebrew state embassy in Ankara, according to the Anka news agency.
⚡️⚡️⚡️ In Kurecik, Turkey ????????: A crowd is trying to break into the ???????? American military base.
The US has no option other than to use lethal force to protect its NATO military bases, located in a NATO COUNTRY (!!), if Pres. Erdogan will not send more cops & soldiers to protect it. pic.twitter.com/yEMr9PcetP
— Jason Jay Smart (@officejjsmart) October 17, 2023
France also targeted
In Tehran (Iran), hundreds of demonstrators gathered in front of the embassies of France and the United Kingdom. “Death to France and England,” they shouted, throwing eggs at the walls of the French embassy compound. As a reminder, Israel and the United States do not have embassies in Tehran in the absence of diplomatic relations between these two countries and Iran. In the Iranian capital, several thousand people had previously gathered in Palestine Square in central Tehran to shout their anger.
“The flames of the American-Israeli bombs, dropped this evening on the wounded Palestinian victims in the hospital (…) in Gaza, will soon devour the Zionists”, declared Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssiwho declared a day of “public mourning” on Wednesday.
Demonstrations of Iranians and slogans of Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest) and ‘Down with the US’ and ‘Down with #Israel‘ to protest against Al-Maamadani Hospital massacre. pic.twitter.com/z9f6trPQ5n
— IRNA News Agency (@IrnaEnglish) October 17, 2023
Thousands of people also gathered Tuesday evening in front of the French embassy in Tunis and demanded the dismissal of the French and American ambassadors. “The French and the Americans are the allies of the Zionists,” chanted the angry demonstrators. “The dismissal of the ambassador is a duty”, “no American embassy on Tunisian territory” they shouted, surrounded by a police force. Up to 3,000 people were present on site.
The demonstrators, including opposition figures and representatives of civil society as well as lawyers, also chanted slogans hostile to French President Emmanuel Macron.
Protests also took place in Baghdad (Iraq), but also in the West Bank where demonstrators called for the resignation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Many other Arab countries have publicly expressed their support for the Gaza Strip. Mauritania thus declared three days of national mourning and expressed “its condemnation and denunciation of the heinous crime and the horrible massacre committed this evening by the Israeli war machine by bombing the Gaza hospital”.
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