THOUSANDS Of Protesters Surround US Embassy In Lebanon, With Demonstrators Hanging Palestinian Flag

Protests erupted outside the U.S. embassy in Beirut just hours after a blast at a hospital in Gaza that Hamas claims killed at least 500 people and has more trapped under rubble.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006, made the call for the day of protest in Beirut in a statement late on Tuesday, after Palestinian officials said hundreds of people were killed in the strike on the hospital.

Israel’s military denied responsibility for the bombing, saying military intelligence suggested the hospital was hit by a failed rocket launch by the enclave’s Palestinian Islamic Jihad military group.

Islamic Jihad denied that any of its rockets were involved in the hospital blast.

Thousands of Lebanese protesters, some waving Palestinian flags, gathered late into Tuesday night outside the U.S. embassy in response to the incident. Others gathered outside the French embassy in Beirut.

Protests erupted outside the U.S. embassy in Beirut just hours after a blast at a hospital in Gaza that Hamas claims killed at least 500 people and has more trapped under rubble

Hundreds of Lebanese protesters, some waving Palestinian flags, gathered late into Tuesday night outside the U.S. embassy in response to the incident. Others gathered outside the French embassy in Beirut

Tear gas was fired at protesters near the U.S. embassy in Lebanon.

In denouncing what the group said was a strike by Israel, Hezbollah said in its statement: ‘The attack reveals the true criminal face of this entity and its sponsor … the United States, which bears direct and complete responsibility for this massacre.’

The strike, soon after the UN said at least six were killed in a strike on a nearby UN-run school during Israeli bombardments, escalates the 11-day-old war, which has already claimed thousands of lives on both sides.

It also happened just hours before US President Joe Biden was due to touch down in the Middle East for high-stakes talks on the war, which was cancelled as summit host Jordan and the wider region mourned the victims, the White House said.

Biden’s visit to Israel was still going ahead.

DailyMail.com has reached out the State Department for comment.

Video from the hospital showed fire engulfing the building and the hospital’s grounds strewn with bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of people were reportedly seeking shelter at the hospital at the time of the blast, which Hamas has called a ‘horrific massacre’ and a ‘crime of genocide’.

About 6,000 Palestinians were sheltering at the hospital, which is reportedly funded by the Anglican Church.

Lebanese protesters wave Palestinian national flags and shout slogans in solidarity with the people of Gaza in down town Beirut, after a strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip

The carnage came as the US tried to convince Israel to allow the delivery of supplies to desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals in the tiny Gaza Strip, which has been under a complete siege since the deadly rampage by Hamas in southern Israel.

It also came a day before US President Joe Biden was due to visit the region to show support for Israel and try to prevent the war from spreading. Palestine‘s president Mahmoud Abbas is understood to have cancelled the meeting with Biden in protest over the airstrike.

An analysis of IDF operational systems has indicated that the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation is ‘responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital’.

The military, in a statement, said that a ‘barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit’.

An IDF spokesperson added: ‘Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza.’

The Islamic Jihad is another Gaza-based terrorist group which has claimed to be fighting Israel alongside Hamas. The group has denied responsibility for the attack.

The Israeli army earlier on Tuesday said that a hospital is a ‘highly sensitive building’ and is ‘not an IDF target’, and urged ‘everyone to proceed with caution when reporting unverified claims of a terrorist organisation’.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter: ‘WHO strongly condemns the attack on al-Ahli Hospital in north Gaza. Early reports indicate hundreds of deaths and injuries.

‘We call for the immediate protection of civilians and health care, and for the evacuation orders to be reversed.’

But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: ‘The entire world should know: It was barbaric terrorists in Gaza that attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the IDF. Those who brutally murdered our children also murder their own children.’