Lebanese protesters vented their anger Saturday over the Gaza offensive against the visiting United Nations chief, saying he did not do enough early in the campaign to prevent hundreds of Palestinians from dying.
"Ban Ki-moon, Ban Ki-moon, pack your things and leave!" hundreds shouted as the secretary-general spoke to Lebanon's parliament nearby. A Hezbollah legislator, Ali Ammar, displayed a bloody doll representing a wounded Palestinian child as he listened to Ban's speech.
In the hours before Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire Saturday night, anger over the offensive echoed around Europe and the Arab world: Crowds of thousands marched in Paris, Rome, Germany and Tunisia. Hundreds of others gathered in Madrid and Athens, Greece. In London, protesters from a rally in Trafalgar Square smashed the windows of a nearby Starbucks.
Israel has said its Gaza offensive, which began Dec. 27, was designed to end rocket fire from the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, into Israel. Gaza medical officials say at least 1,140 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting.
An official from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, said at the protest that Ban's Mideast tour "will not fool us."
"You (Ban Ki-moon) should have taken action from the first day or week to stop this aggression, not come after 22 days," said Mahmoud Komati, a member of Hezbollah's political wing, speaking to the estimated 500 protesters outside the U.N. headquarters in downtown Beirut.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri criticized the U.N. for its alleged paralysis on the Gaza issue and said implementing U.N. resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict, including ones calling for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory, would restore respect to the organization.
The U.N. leader is on a trip through the Middle East designed to help end the conflict in the Gaza Strip, home to 1.4 million people.
Ban said Hamas must stop rocket attacks on Israel, and the Jewish state must end its offensive and withdraw its troops from Gaza.
Ban met separately with the Lebanese president and prime minister earlier Saturday.
Elsewhere, more than 2,000 protesters marched in Paris in a show of support for Gaza Palestinians, though police cut the event short before it reached its intended destination, the Israeli embassy.
And about 4,000 supporters of Gaza Palestinians paraded up and down Tunis' Avenue Mohammed V for about an hour, under heavy police presence.
Source: AP Features
