A fire was lit near the Israeli embassy in Amman, and demonstrators gathered in front of the US mission in Beirut, who were dispersed by the police with tear gas. In the West Bank, thousands took to the streets, in Iraq they chanted: “Revenge is coming!” Across the Arab world, people took to the streets on Tuesday evening to show their anger over the rocket strike at Ahli Arab Hospital in the Gaza Strip, which is said to have killed hundreds of civilians. Hamas accuses Israel of being responsible for the shelling. The Israeli military, however, released images that are said to show that a misguided Islamic Jihad rocket hit the hospital.
For many people and governments in the Arab world, there is no question that Israel is responsible for the shelling. King Abdullah II of Jordan called the explosion a “heinous war crime that cannot be ignored” and declared a three-day mourning period for the dead in his country. The Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry blamed “the forces of Israeli occupation” for the massacre. There is a clear distancing from Israel, with which the Gulf kingdom was negotiating normalization of relations until recently; the possibility of recognition seemed possible.
The dynamic is different now. Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the region must recognize that the rapprochement with Israel was primarily a political project of the elite, but not of the population. There were also demonstrations against Israel in Morocco, which, like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, had normalized its relations with Tel Aviv without clarifying the issue of a separate state for the Palestinians, which is more important than that for many Arabs most of their respective regents. The attack on the hospital changed the situation. Many governments can no longer ignore the mood of the population. The Emirates also condemned the “human tragedy and the terrible scenes involving innocent people as a result of the Israeli attack on the Baptist Hospital in Gaza.”
In Europe and the USA, politicians in recent days have emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense following the Hamas terrorist attack. Even before the attack on the hospital, many people in the Arab world were talking about a “genocide in Gaza”, a collective punishment of an entire people by an occupying power. It was seen with horror that Israel called on the entire population of Gaza to flee to the south of the country. But at the same time the bombardment increased right there. Women and children are said to have died again.
The images from the destroyed hospital have reached a new level of cruelty. A father transports the body parts of his children in plastic bags, media in Gaza report. Hospital management holds a press conference amid body bags. You don’t always know what is real and what is propaganda. But the images are in the world.
Hezbollah announces a “day of wrath against the enemy.”
The governments of the Middle East will approach the war in Gaza differently than before. The Jordanian government has canceled US President Joe Biden’s scheduled meeting on Wednesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The Organization for Islamic Cooperation is meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the UN Security Council is meeting in New York. Jordan and Egypt have already made it clear that they will demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Others may use the images from the hospital to further escalate the conflict. “Tomorrow, Wednesday, shall be a day of anger against the enemy,” said Hamas-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon.