Whatever final conclusions investigators, still analyzing the evidence, reached about the origins of the explosion, for many Arabs the stark truth did not appear to change: It was Israel that was now bombing Gaza, killing far more civilians , as Palestinian militants had killed Israel 11 days ago, in a repeat of the one-sided reckoning of previous Israeli retaliatory campaigns.
It was Israel that forced two million Palestinian civilians into the open-air prison that human rights groups say Gaza has become and systematically reduced any Palestinian chance of statehood, laying the groundwork for conflict, experts say. And it was Israel that many Arabs accused of covering up its role in past abuses.
With that in mind, they said, there was only one side that could be blamed for Tuesday night’s horror.
It was galling to find out instead that Israel’s main backer, the United States, was blaming the Palestinians and that the Western news media was failing to condemn Israel over the deaths – another reason, protesters said, to correct the record by using their voices raised.
“As a journalist, I feel obliged to counter this propaganda from the media that reports on this crime,” said Saida El Kamel, a Moroccan journalist who took part in a meeting in front of the parliament in Rabat, the capital of Morocco, on Tuesday evening. to protest Israel and the United States.
Such demonstrations, which erupted outside U.S. diplomatic outposts across the region, prompted the American embassy in Lebanon to warn citizens not to visit the country, while the consulate in Adana, Turkey, was closed.
Hassan Bennajeh, who has helped organize pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Morocco over the past week, said people had gathered in 23 Moroccan cities on Tuesday evening following the hospital explosion, a remarkable number given the rarity of demonstrations in Morocco and their usual speed the authorities by crushing them.
But the Moroccan Foreign Ministry quickly joined its citizens in blaming Israel for the hospital explosion, even though Morocco normalized relations with the Jewish state in 2020.
In Egypt, whose autocratic government usually suppresses almost any hint of protest, authorities held back as demonstrations broke out in several cities on Wednesday, including university campuses in Cairo, Alexandria, Minya, Mansoura and Beni Suef.
“Arabs, where are you?” shouted students at Mansoura University in the Nile Delta videos posted on social media. “Palestinian blood was shed.”