Thousands of people filled a square in Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of Dahieh on Wednesday and poured into its densely populated sidestreets, answering the group’s call for a day of rage after the blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday evening.
As the US president, Joe Biden, made a show of solidarity with Israel during a visit there, the crowds in Dahieh chanted: “We obey you, oh Nasrallah” and: “Death to America and Israel”. Some waved Hezbollah and Palestinian flags and carried pictures of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah, an Islamist movement which, like Hamas, is backed by Iran, runs a political party that wields decisive influence in Lebanon, as well as having a powerful military wing.
From a podium erected at the far end of the square, Hashem Safieddine, a senior Hezbollah official, gave a speech in which he railed against “the arrogance of the Zionists” for assigning responsibility for the blast to Palestinian factions. “This is worse than the targeting and killing of children,” he said, adding that Hezbollah was “thousands of times stronger” than before and that the US, Israel and “malicious Europeans” should be careful.
On Wednesday night, the Foreign Office advised against travel to Lebanon and advised British citizens there currently to get out “while commercial options remain available”.
Elsewhere in Beirut, hundreds of young people gathered at a road block leading to the US embassy, where they were met by the Lebanese army and riot police, who fired teargas and rubber bullets. Soldiers charged at the protesters, dispersing them into a neighbouring highway.
“America is the devil, the real devil, because it supported Israel, and then all the world is blind. You don’t see what happened yesterday?” said Mohammed Taher, one of the Lebanese demonstrators.
About 130 miles to the south, in Tel Aviv, Biden was giving his backing to Israel’s assessment that the devastating blast at al-Ahli Arab hospital was not the result of an Israeli airstrike, but instead “an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza”.
The hospital explosion, which ignited protests across the Arab world after Hamas swiftly assigned responsibility to Israel, coincided with an escalation in tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Hezbollah and Israel have clashed along the border in recent days, though the skirmishes remain mostly contained along a handful of border towns. The group announced another death among its ranks on Wednesday, its 11th since the conflict began.
Videos released on the organisation’s Telegram channel showed guided anti-tank missiles destroying an Israeli tank that was targeting a group of soldiers. In the meantime, the group’s snipers continued to target and destroy monitoring cameras installed along the border.
As the clashes continued, Saudi Arabia told its citizens to leave, citing “current events” in the south. The US state department warned its citizens not to come and urged those in the country to “make appropriate arrangements to leave”. The French foreign ministry said on Wednesday it was advising its citizens against any travel to Lebanon given the security situation, especially at the border with Israel.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Lebanese Red Cross collected the bodies and remains of four Hezbollah militants who had been killed. Three bodies and a bag of remains were transferred from the Lebanese Red Cross to Hezbollah’s Islamic health unit at the Hiram hospital near the southern city of Tyre.
A Hezbollah spokesperson said the bodies belonged to militants whose deaths were announced the day before, without giving additional details. Hezbollah announced the death of five of its fighters on Tuesday. The spokesperson commented on condition of anonymity, in line with regulations.
