Anti-U.S. clash violent in Beirut; Jerusalem move protested

Protesters carry a girl who fainted after she inhaled tear gas fired by Lebanese riot police Sunday during a demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy on the outskirts of Beirut.
Protesters carry a girl who fainted after she inhaled tear gas fired by Lebanese riot police Sunday during a demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy on the outskirts of Beirut.

BEIRUT -- Lebanese security forces clashed Sunday with demonstrators near the U.S. Embassy in Beirut as hundreds protested President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

Security forces cut off all roads leading to the embassy to prevent protesters from reaching it. The forces also set up barbed wire about half a mile from the compound.

The forces fired tear gas when the demonstrators tried to breach the barbed wire and reach a closed road leading to the embassy, a police source said.

In response, demonstrators threw stones at the security forces and set nearby garbage drums on fire, witnesses said. One man drop-kicked an officer to the ground. Several people were injured after being hit directly by tear gas canisters, witnesses said. One man who said he had been hit by birdshot was seen bleeding from two places in his back.

The protesters, bused in from around Beirut, included Lebanese and Palestinians. Some chanted, "Jerusalem is Arab! Palestine is Arab!" and other slogans. Many waved Palestinian flags and the flags of Lebanese parties, Arab nationalists and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia and political party formed to fight Israel.

Some protesters also burned an effigy of Trump. Others, waving the Palestinian flag, chanted "God Bless Jerusalem" and "America is the head of terrorism."

Injured demonstrators were carried away from the front line of the clashes, which took place less than a mile from the highly secured embassy compound. The Health Ministry later said eight people had been hospitalized and 43 people treated at the scene.

Security forces broke up the rally after the demonstrators tried to breach the security cordon, Lebanon's official National News Agency reported.

Several people reported temporary breathing problems as a result of inhaling tear gas, Lebanese television network LBC said.

Lebanon is home to more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees, many of whom fled what is now Israel and the West Bank during the wars of 1948 and 1967 or are descendants of those who did. They live under tight restrictions imposed by the Lebanese government, which has barred them from more than 30 professions as part of efforts to avoid normalizing their status in Lebanon.

The White House's Jerusalem announcement on Wednesday triggered widespread protests, with tens of thousands across the region venting their anger.

Standing at the far edge of Sunday's protest in Beirut, Faraj Shahin, a Palestinian, described the Middle East's leaders as "traitors" who had sold out her countrymen.

"Arab leaders sold al-Aqsa for dollars. Shame on them," she said, in reference to al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest shrines.

With his face buried in a scarf to shield his eyes from the acrid tear gas, an 18-year-old protester described the small-scale clashes Sunday as an attempt to "liberate" al-Aqsa from Israel.

In Jerusalem itself, violence has been limited to small confrontations between protesters and Israeli security forces. The larger demonstrations and clashes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza had largely died out by Sunday, although skirmishes between protesters and security forces were reported in Ramallah and near Hebron in the West Bank.

In Indonesia, about 10,000 people rallied Sunday outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.

Similar protests, mostly organized by the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party also were held in many other cities in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country.

The protests were the third and biggest in Indonesia since Trump's decision last week.

In Jakarta, protesters carried banners reading "U.S. Embassy, Get Out from Al Quds," "Free Jerusalem and Palestinians" and "We are with the Palestinians." Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.

Wearing traditional Islamic white robes, the protesters also unfurled Indonesian and Palestinian flags.

A written statement from the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party described Trump's decision as "a form of humiliation and provocation against Muslims all over the world."

It said similar and simultaneous protests also were held Sunday in at least 10 provincial capitals and cities across Indonesia.

Earlier in the day, another group, calling itself Indonesia's Volunteers Society, held a similar rally in Jakarta, hundreds of yards from the embassy.

Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has strongly condemned Trump's move, which he described as a violation of U.N. resolutions.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, police arrested three people Sunday after a masked gang hurled Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in the port city of Gothenburg as it hosted an event on Saturday night.

The attack set the yard ablaze, but the building did not catch fire and no one was injured. Authorities said the people gathered on the premises had fled to safety in the basement.

A police spokesman, Ulla Brehm, said: "It might become a hate crime. The crime is attempted arson. But that may change during the investigation."

The Police Authority's commissioner, Dan Eliasson, told the Aftonbladet newspaper that the threat level against Jewish interests in Sweden had increased since Trump's announcement.

The attack in Gothenburg, a city on the country's west coast, came a day after demonstrators took to the streets of Malmo, Sweden's third-largest city, shouting slogans about killing or shooting Jews.

Allan Stutzinsky, chairman of the synagogue, who witnessed the fire, told a local newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, that about 10 young people who had gathered outside the gate began setting fire to objects and throwing them at the synagogue.

"They were masked and setting fire to things and then throwing them over the gate into the courtyard," he said. "There was an actual fire in the yard, but then a heavy rainfall came, and the fire was put out quite quickly."

Brehm, a spokesman for the police in Region West, said Gothenburg officers received a call about the episode after 10 p.m. Saturday. She said the suspects were dressed in black and wearing hoodies.

"They ran away, and shortly thereafter we got hold of three of them," she said.

Swedish leaders condemned the attack on the synagogue. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said in a statement on Sunday: "There is no place for anti-Semitism in our Swedish society. The perpetrators will answer for their crimes."

Calle Persson, a spokesman for police in Malmo, said about 200 people gathered in the Mollevangstorget square in central Malmo on Friday afternoon to demonstrate against Israel.

"They had Palestinian flags," he said. "They sang and among other things they yelled that they were going to shoot Jews."

He said officers were scouring video footage of the demonstration and investigating reports of hate speech. A similar demonstration was held on Thursday, he said.

According to Radio Sweden in Malmo, which reported from the scene of Friday's demonstration, protesters said in Arabic, "We've called for intifada from Malmo."

But at a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm on Saturday, a speaker with a Palestinian scarf wrapped around his neck told the crowd: "There is no room for anti-Semitism here. Anyone who expresses those sentiments should leave."

The Jewish population in Sweden numbers about 18,000, according to the Jewish Museum in Stockholm.

A police chief in Gothenburg told the TT wire agency that Jews in Sweden might fall victim to attacks from leftist extremists angry at Israel, from anti-Semitic right-wing groups or from Muslim extremist groups.

Information for this article was contributed by Louisa Loveluck, Suzan Haidamous, Loveday Morris and James McAuley of The Washington Post; by Nada Homsi, Anne Barnard and Christina Anderson of The New York Times; by Weedah Hamzah of Tribune News Service; and by staff members of The Associated Press.

photo

AP/BILAL HUSSEIN

Protesters trying to enter the U.S. Embassy are sprayed by Lebanese riot police using water cannons during a demonstration Sunday on the outskirts of Beirut.

A Section on 12/11/2017

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