Hezbollah called for a “day of rage against the enemy” on Wednesday following the deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital, which the terror group blamed on Israel, though the country’s military denied responsibility, pointing instead to intelligence showing it resulted from a rocket misfire by Hamas.
"Following an additional review and cross-examination of the operational and intelligence systems, it is clear that the IDF did not strike the hospital in Gaza," the IDF said in a statement. "The hospital was hit as a result of a failed rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization."
The statement continued, "The terrorist organizations within the Gaza Strip fire indiscriminately toward Israel. Since the beginning of the war, approximately 450 rockets launched toward Israel have fallen within Gaza, endangering and harming the lives of Gazan residents.”
Hezbollah called on supporters to “move immediately to streets and squares to express intense anger” over the hospital attack, which it characterized as a “massacre” and “brutal crime.”
Following Hezbollah's call, hundreds of demonstrators scuffled with Lebanese security forces outside the US embassy in the suburb of Awkar, where protesters hurled stones and set a building on fire, according to AFP correspondents.
Police fired several rounds of tear gas to disperse protesters, with medics rushing in to treat cases of suffocation.
"Death to America" and "death to Israel", the protesters chanted, many of them covering their faces with Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, the correspondents said.
Hundreds also gathered at the French embassy in Beirut, raising Hezbollah flags and also hurling stones which piled up at the embassy's main entrance.
Palestinian refugee camps in the southern cities of Sidon and Tyre erupted in anger as Palestinian factions in Lebanon called for mass rallies on Wednesday to condemn the hospital strike. (AFP)
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
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) October 18, 2023
A fire burns behind the gates of the US embassy in Awkar… pic.twitter.com/sS20x99dsG
The “day of rage” coincides with President Biden’s visit to Israel.
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