Angry protests continued across the Middle East on Wednesday as thousands of people in different countries demonstrated against Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip amid growing anger over the blast at a Gaza hospital that left hundreds dead and injured.
The Israeli military produced evidence on Wednesday morning that it said showed the blast at al-Ahli Arab hospital was the result of a rocket launched by the militant group Islamic Jihad misfiring. The group denied responsibility. The Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas, has blamed an Israeli strike.
As both sides continued to trade blame – and as Joe Biden arrived in Israel and said he was “sad and outraged” by the blast, which he suggested had not been caused by Israeli forces – Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement called for a “day of rage” on Wednesday.
Hezbollah’s call followed angry protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco and Iran.
“Death to America! Death to Israel!” hundreds of Hezbollah supporters chanted at a rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday.
“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,” a senior Hezbollah official, Hashem Safieddine, told the demonstrators.
The US state department has raised its travel alert for Lebanon to “do not travel”, while authorising the voluntary, temporary departure of family members of US government personnel.
Two Palestinian teenagers, aged 15 and 17, were shot dead by Israeli forces during protests in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday. Residents told Reuters the two boys were trying to set fire to tyres in protest against Israel when they were shot. Israel Defence Forces said it was looking into the incident.
Thousands of students rallied at Egyptian universities on Wednesday to condemn the Israeli strikes on Gaza. Protesters in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities chanted “Death to Israel!”
Such protests are rare in Egypt, where the 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.
Jordan, long considered a bastion of stability in the region, also saw mass protests on Tuesday, with pro-Palestinian protesters trying to storm the Israeli embassy.
In Tehran, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the British and French embassies in the early hours of Wednesday. “Death to France and England!” protesters shouted, throwing eggs at the walls of the French embassy compound.
In Libya, hundreds of demonstrators of all ages, brandishing Palestinian flags and some covering their faces with Palestinian keffiyehs, crisscrossed the streets of Tripoli before converging on Martyrs’ Square. They chanted slogans of support for the residents of Gaza.
Television footage also showed protests in Yemen’s south-western city of Taz, as well as in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, and Iraq’s capital, Baghdad.
“The Arab street has a voice,” said Badr al-Saif, a history professor at Kuwait University. “That voice may have been ignored in the past by governments in the region and the west … but they cannot do this any more. People are on fire.”
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said the blast at the hospital was “the latest example of Israeli attacks devoid of the most basic human values”, while large crowds of protesters gathered outside the Israeli embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, there was a large security presence around the Istanbul consulate, with hundreds of police officers and about 10 water cannon vehicles deployed behind a line of metal barriers. Police conducted identity checks on those seeking to pass through. Israel’s national security council (NSC) has issued a warning against travel to Turkey, citing fears that Israelis would be targeted by those angry at the war. It also urged Israeli citizens in Turkey to leave as soon as possible.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which both established ties with Israel in the Abraham accords of 2020, have also condemned the “Israeli” attack, which came as Israeli forces continue to target Gaza in response to Hamas’s attacks on 7 October, which killed more than 1,400 people. According to the UN, more than 3,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since Hamas’s assault.
Protests were also expected in Europe on Wednesday. In Spain, the Palestinian Community of Catalonia called a demonstration in Barcelona at 6pm on Wednesday to protest against “the genocide against the Palestinian population”.
The conflict has led to a rise in antisemitic attacks across Europe. On Wednesday, German police arrested two hooded men who had thrown molotov cocktails at a synagogue in central Berlin.
Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
