Demonstrators in cities around the world on Sunday marched in protest against the Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip that have killed more than 300 people in the Palestinian territory.
British police made 10 arrests as a demonstration outside the Israeli embassy in London turned violent. Riot police moved in after people tore down the barriers keeping them back from the embassy.
Earlier on Sunday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called for an “urgent ceasefire and immediate halt to all violence” in Gaza.
PHOTO: AP
A call to “urgently halt” the military action also came from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who spoke to his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni.
The top diplomats in Italy and Spain, Franco Frattini and Miguel Angel Moratinos, also spoke by telephone with Livni who said Israel would try “to limit the suffering of the people of Gaza,” the Italian foreign ministry said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, told Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas by telephone of his grave concerns about the escalating violence in the region and the need for both sides to stop their aggressions.
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday denounced the violence between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza, and urged everyone involved in the “tragic situation in the Middle East” to strive for humanity and wisdom.
The UN chief added his voice to the UN Security Council’s call for an immediate end to hostilities and urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the poverty-stricken territory.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “deplores that violence is continuing today and he strongly urges once again an immediate stop to all acts of violence,” his spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said in a statement.
While the outgoing Bush administration has blamed Hamas “thugs” for provoking the Israeli offensive by firing rockets into the Jewish state from Gaza, a top aide to US president-elect Barack Obama was more measured, saying Obama remained “committed” to achieving peace in the Middle East. Recognizing the special relationship between the US and Israel, Obama would work closely with the Israelis, David Axelrod said in an interview on CBS television.
“But he will do so in a way that will promote the cause of peace and work closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians on that — toward that objective,” Axelrod said.
Around European capitals, Danish police arrested a man on the fringes of a protest march in Copenhagen after he threw a petrol bomb at officers. Police said the rally drew about 700 people, though organizers put the number closer to 2,000.
In Paris, about 200 people gathered on the Champs Elysees, while across the city in the northern district of Barbes, an area with a high concentration of north Africans, police said 1,300 others had joined an anti-Israel protest.
In Madrid, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Israeli embassy, brandishing placards reading “Israel terrorist,” “Stop state terrorism” and “No to the Palestinian holocaust.”
The largest single protest of about 8,000 people took place in Egypt on the streets of the southern city of Assiut. Some 4,000 protesters rallied in the capital Cairo, while a demonstration in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria drew a similar number, a security official said.
Lebanese Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah urged Egyptians in their “millions” to take to the streets to force their government to open the country’s border with Gaza, to help save Palestinians from the Israeli bombardments.
Another major showing of anti-Israeli sentiment was seen in Turkey where thousands of people joined demonstrations in about a dozen Turkish cities.
In Syria, protesters burned Israeli and US flags as thousands demonstrated in central Damascus. Security was tight around the US embassy, 2km from the scene of the protest in the Syrian capital.
Demonstrators burned Israeli flags in Amman, where hundreds of people led by Islamist lawmakers gathered to demand the closure of the Israeli embassy.
With Egypt, Jordan is one of only two Arab governments to have signed peace treaties with Israel.
The Israeli bombardment in Gaza has killed more than 300 people since Saturday, the Jewish state’s biggest offensive against the Palestinian territory since its capture in the 1967 Middle East war.
Aid agency Oxfam warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza if the Israeli attacks did not cease.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement: “The influx of war wounded has put a tremendous strain on Gaza’s already overburdened hospitals, which are in dire need of medical equipment.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the