Gaza massacre spreads anger across Middle East – Gudstory

A significant tragedy unfolded on Tuesday following the devastating attack on a Gaza hospital. The initial death toll is estimated to be more than 500. Palestinians and Israelis have blamed each other for the hospital bombing.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – America’s friends who typically relish the chance to meet with American presidents – canceled a planned Wednesday summit with Joe Biden. Who now only visits Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran is demanding an oil embargo and other sanctions against Israel over airstrikes on Gaza. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian called for “an immediate and complete embargo on the Zionist regime by Islamic countries, including an oil embargo against the regime,” according to a statement from the ministry.

Amirabdullahian made the comments at an urgent meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in the Saudi city of Jeddah, which was called to discuss the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Iran, a major oil exporter, has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

While other Middle Eastern energy producers, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have criticized Israel for its attacks on Gaza, they have not called for stopping oil sales to it or any of its allies.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spent much of last week meeting with Arab leaders to try to keep tensions under control, but those efforts are now in doubt after the hospital explosion. The US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states are striking a chord of decades-long Palestinian suffering, threatening widespread unrest.

Abdullah, one of the closest Western allies in the Middle East, warned, “This war, which has entered a dangerous phase, will plunge the region into an unspeakable disaster.”

Meanwhile, the US on Wednesday vetoed a UN resolution condemning Hamas attacks against Israel and all violence against civilians and urging humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. In the 15-member Security Council, 12 votes were cast in favor of the vote, against the US and two votes were absent.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said an Israeli airstrike caused the hospital explosion, while Israel blamed a rocket fired by the militant Islamic Jihad group, which failed. Biden reiterated the Israeli view after arriving in Tel Aviv, saying it appeared the explosion was caused “by the other team, not by you”, but that there were “a lot of people” who were not sure.

Arab protesters, who gathered in several countries late Tuesday night, were no doubt dismayed by what they saw as Israeli atrocities.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has been locked down since a bloody uprising by Hamas militants on October 7 ignited the war, protesters clashed with Palestinian security forces and called for the overthrow of Abbas.

Israel and the West have long seen Abbas as a partner in reducing tensions, but his Palestinian Authority is seen by Palestinians as a corrupt and autocratic ally in Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank.

Jordan, long considered a bastion of stability in the region, has seen mass protests in recent days. Late Tuesday night, pro-Palestinian protesters tried to storm the Israeli embassy.

“They are normalizing all Arab rulers. None of them are free; All free people are dead!” shouted one protester. “The Arab countries are incapable of doing anything!”

Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel in the late 1970s. Jordan followed in 1994.

Egypt has not seen major protests since the latest Hamas–Israel war began; Authorities have cracked down on dissent for more than a decade. But fears Israel could push the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and rising consumer prices could prove an untenable combination amid rising inflation where a popular uprising overthrew the US-backed autocratic ruler in 2011.

A small group of activists protested near the US and UK embassies in central Cairo late Tuesday, calling on Egypt to cut ties with Israel and expel its ambassador. Authorities have increased security in Cairo’s Maadi district, where the Israeli embassy is located.

“The US administration is an accomplice through supporting the crimes committed by the occupation forces against the people of Gaza,” said Khaled Dawud, spokesman for the Coalition of Opposition Political Parties and Public Figures.

Protests also broke out in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has exchanged fire with Israeli forces on the border, and has threatened to enter the war as far as Morocco with its vast arsenal of rockets.

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Updated: October 19, 2023, 12:06 AM IST