'Day of rage' protests held across Middle East after Gaza hospital blast

Angry protests continued across the Middle East yesterday as thousands of people across the region demonstrated against Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip amid growing anger over the hospital blast that left hundreds dead and injured.

- Sam Jones

Yesterday morning the Israeli military produced what it claimed was evidence showing the blast at al-Ahli Arab hospital was caused by a misfired rocket that had been launched by the militant group Islamic Jihad.

The group denied responsibility. The Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas, has blamed an Israeli strike.

As both sides continued to trade blame, Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement declared yesterday to be a "day of rage". Hezbollah's call followed angry protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as in 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 yesterday.

"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," Hashem Safieddine, a senior Hezbollah official, told the demonstrators.

The US state department has raised its travel alert for Lebanon to "do not travel", while authorising voluntary, temporary, departures of family members of US government personnel.