PARIS/WASHINGTON: Thousands of protesters took to the streets in major cities around the world on Saturday demanding an end to bloodshed in Gaza and the wider Middle East as the start of Israel’s war in the Palestinian enclave approaches its first anniversary.
About 40,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through central London while thousands gathered in Paris, Rome, Manila, Cape Town and New York City. Demonstrations were also held near the White House in Washington, protesting US support for its ally Israel in military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.
Protesters at Times Square in New York City wore the black-and-white keffiyeh scarf and chanted slogans like: “Gaza, Lebanon you will rise, the people are by your side.” They held banners demanding an arms embargo against Israel.
The latest bloodshed in the decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
“Unfortunately, in spite of all our good will, the Israeli government does not take any notice, and they just go ahead and continue their atrocities in Gaza, now also in Lebanon and in Yemen, and also probably in Iran,” said protester Agnes Kory in London.
“And our government, our British government, unfortunately is just paying lip service and carries on supplying weapons to Israel,” she added.
In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, at least 1,000 pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Sunday morning near the US embassy demanding that Washington stop supplying weapons to Israel.
In London, counter-demonstrators waved Israeli flags as pro-Palestinian marchers walked by. There were 15 arrests on the sidelines of the protests, according to police, who did not specify whether those detained were from either group.
In Rome, police fired tear gas and water cannons after clashes broke out. Around 6,000 protesters defied a ban to march in the city center ahead of the Oct. 7 anniversary of Hamas’ attack.
In Berlin, a protest drew about 1,000 demonstrators with Palestinian flags, who chanted: “One Year of Genocide.”
German demonstrators also criticized what they called police violence against pro-Palestinian protesters. Israel supporters in Berlin protested against rising antisemitism. Scuffles broke out between police and pro-Palestinian protesters.
Over the past year, the scale of the killing and destruction in Gaza has drawn some of the biggest global protests in years, including in the US, that saw weeks of pro-Palestinian college campus encampments.
Advocates have raised concerns over alarming antisemitic and Islamophobic rhetoric in some protests and counter-protests related to the conflict. Rights advocates have warned about rising threats against Muslims and Jews around the world.
Israel’s supporters have expressed offense over some slogans that they say question Israel’s right to exist as a nation. Pro-Palestinian protesters point to violence such as an incident in which a mob in California attacked an encampment of demonstrators in April.
The war in Gaza has spread through the region, drawing in Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Israel has sharply escalated a campaign in recent weeks in Lebanon that has killed hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over a million. Israel says it is attempting to dismantle Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles against Israel this week to which Israel has not yet responded. Israeli operations have also escalated in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
In Paris, Lebanese-French protester Houssam Houssein said: “We fear a regional war, because there are tensions with Iran at the moment, and perhaps with Iraq and Yemen.” Houssein added: “We really need to stop the war because it’s now become unbearable.”
Israel has faced wide international condemnation over its actions in Gaza, and now over its bombarding of Lebanon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government is acting to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas and Washington says it supports Israel’s right to self-defense.
US government agencies warned on Friday that the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks may motivate individuals to engage in violence. Officials in some states, including New York, raised security measures out of caution.
In Manila, activists clashed with anti-riot police after they were blocked from holding a demonstration in front of the US embassy in the Philippine capital against Washington’s support for Israel.
International diplomacy backed by the US has so far failed to clinch a ceasefire deal in Gaza. Hamas wants an agreement that ends the war while Israel says fighting can end only when Hamas is eradicated.
Thousands around the world protest Middle East war as Oct. 7 anniversary nears
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Thousands around the world protest Middle East war as Oct. 7 anniversary nears
- 40,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched in London
- Protesters oppose Israel’s Gaza actions, worry about spreading conflict
Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayors with state officials in two eastern cities
ANKARA: Turkiye stripped two elected pro-Kurdish mayors of their posts in eastern cities on Friday, for convictions on terrorism-related offenses, the interior ministry said, temporarily appointing state officials in their places instead.
The local governor replaced mayor Cevdet Konak in Tunceli, while a local administrator was appointed in the place of Ovacik mayor Mustafa Sarigul, the ministry said in a statement, adding these were “temporary measures.”
Konak is a member of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, which has 57 seats in the national parliament, and Sarigul is a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Dozens of pro-Kurdish mayors from its predecessor parties have been removed from their posts on similar charges in the past.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said authorities had deemed that Sarigul’s attendance at a funeral was a crime and called the move to appoint a trustee “a theft of the national will,” adding his party would stand against the “injustice.”
“Removing a mayor who has been elected by the votes of the people for two terms over a funeral he attended 12 years ago has no more jurisdiction than the last struggles of a government on its way out,” Ozel said on X.
Earlier this month, Turkiye replaced three pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities over similar terrorism-related reasons, drawing backlash from the DEM Party and others.
Last month, a mayor from the CHP was arrested after prosecutors accused him of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), banned as a terrorist group in Turkiye and deemed a terrorist group by the European Union and United States.
The appointment of government trustees followed a surprise proposal by President Tayyip Erdogan’s main ally last month to end the state’s 40-year conflict with the PKK.
Gaza civil defense says 19 killed in Israeli strikes
- More than 40 others wounded in three massacres caused by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip
Gaza City: Gaza’s civil defense agency said that 19 people, some of them children, were killed in Israeli air strikes and tank fire on Saturday.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that “19 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded in three massacres caused by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip between midnight and this morning,” as well as by tank fire in Rafah in the territory’s south.
11 dead as powerful Israeli airstrike shakes central Beirut
- Attack destroyed an eight-story building and caused a large number of fatalities and injuries
BEIRUT: A powerful airstrike killed 11 people in central Beirut on Saturday, the Lebanese civil defense said, shaking the capital as Israel pressed its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
The attack destroyed an eight-story building and caused a large number of fatalities and injuries, Lebanon’s National News Agency said. Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
Israel used bunker buster bombs in the strike, leaving a deep crater, the agency said. Beirut smelled strongly of explosives hours after the attack.
The blasts shook the capital at around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT). Security sources said at least four bombs were dropped in the attack.
It marked the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting a central area of Beirut, in contrast to the bulk of Israel’s attacks on the capital region, which have hit the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. On Sunday an Israeli airstrike killed a Hezbollah media official in the Ras Al-Nabaa district of central Beirut.
Rescuers searched through rubble, in an area of the city known for its antique shops.
HOSPITALIZED DAUGHTER
A man whose family was hurt tried to comfort a traumatized woman outside a hospital. Car windows were shattered.
“There was dust and wrecked houses, people running and screaming, they were running, my wife is in hospital, my daughter is in hospital, my aunt is in the hospital,” said the man, Nemir Zakariya, who held up a picture of his daughter.
“This is the little one, and my son also got hurt – this is my daughter, she is in the American University (of Beirut Medical Center), this is what happened.”
Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon in September, following nearly a year of cross-border hostilities ignited by the Gaza war, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Israeli strikes killed at least 62 people and injured 111 in Lebanon on Thursday, bringing the toll since October 2023 to 3,645 dead and 15,355 injured, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government accuse Israel of indiscriminate bombing that kills civilians. Israel denies the allegation and says it takes numerous steps to avoid the deaths of civilians.
Hezbollah strikes in the same period have killed more than 100 people in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They include more than 70 soldiers killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israel.
The conflict began when Hezbollah, Tehran’s most important ally in the region, opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas after it launched the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
A US mediator traveled to Lebanon and Israel this week in an effort to secure a ceasefire. The envoy, Amos Hochstein, indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive
- Destruction of Lubnan Baalbaki’s childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon
- Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, held more than just personal memories
BEIRUT: Lubnan Baalbaki, the conductor of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, watched on his phone screen as an aerial camera pointed to a village in southern Lebanon. In seconds, multiple houses erupted into rubble, smoke filling the air. The camera panned right, revealing widespread devastation.
He zoomed in to confirm his fears: His family’s house in the border village of Odaisseh, where his parents are buried, was now in ruins.
“To see your house getting bombed and in a split second turned into ash, I don’t think there is description for it,” Baalbaki said.
The destruction of his childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel.
The Israeli military has released videos of controlled detonations in areas along the border, saying it is targeting Hezbollah facilities and weapons.
But the bombardment has also wiped out entire residential neighborhoods or even villages. The World Bank in a recent report said over 99,000 housing units have been “fully or partially damaged” by the war in Lebanon.
Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, renowned Lebanese painter Abdel Hamid Baalbaki, held more than just personal memories. It held a collection of Abdel Hamid’s paintings, his art workshop and over 1,500 books. All were destroyed along with the house.
What cut even deeper, Baalbaki said, was the loss of the letters his parents exchanged during his father’s art studies in France. Only a few remain as digital photos.
“The language of passion and love they shared was filled with poetry,” Baalbaki said.
In a book of poems and photographs his father created for his wife following her sudden death in a car accident, the first page reads, “Dedication to Adeeba, the partner of my most precious days, the love bird that left its nest too soon.”
Abdel Hamid painstakingly designed his wife’s tombstone. Later, he was laid to rest beside her in the garden next to the house. For their son, watching his childhood home go up in smoke brought back the pain of losing them.
It was a moment he had feared for months.
Hezbollah began firing missiles into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. For nearly a year, the conflict remained limited.
After the war dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 with intense Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, Baalbaki and his siblings frequently checked satellite images for updates on their village.
On Oct. 26, explosions in and around Odaisseh triggered an earthquake alert in northern Israel. That day, videos circulated online, one of which showed their home being obliterated.
Until a few days before that, the satellite images showed their house still standing.
Now, Baalbaki said, he is resolved to honor his father’s dream.
“The mourning phase started to turn to determination to rebuild this project,” he said.
When the war is over, he plans to rebuild the house as an art museum and cultural center.
226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO
- Over 187 attacks on healthcare workers have taken place in Lebanon over 13 months, says UN health agency
- Fifteen of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning, warns WHO
GENEVA: Nearly 230 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, the World Health Organization said.
In total, the UN health agency said there had been 187 attacks on health care in Lebanon in the more than 13 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Nov.18 this year, “we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total,” Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, said via video link from Beirut.
He said “almost 70 percent” of these had occurred since the tensions escalated into an all-out war in September.
Saying this was “an extremely worrying pattern,” he stressed that “depriving civilians of access to lifesaving care and targeting health providers is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient” — the highest percentage of any active conflict today.
By comparison, Abubakar said that only 13.3 percent of attacks on health care globally had fatal outcomes during the same period, pointing to data from a range of conflict situations, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on health care in Lebanon might be because “more ambulances have been targeted.”
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics ... killed.”
The conflict has dealt a harsh blow to overall health care in Lebanon, which was already reeling from a string of dire crises in recent years.
The WHO warned that 15 of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, stressed that “attacks on health care of this scale cripple a health system when those whose lives depend on it need it the most.”
“Beyond the loss of life, the death of health workers is a loss of years of investment and a crucial resource to a fragile country going forward.”
