Protests in Libya over Gaza Hospital Strike

Libyans chant slogans and wave Palestinian and Libyan national flags as they march in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Mahmud Turkia / AFP
Libyans chant slogans and wave Palestinian and Libyan national flags as they march in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Mahmud Turkia / AFP
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Protests in Libya over Gaza Hospital Strike

Libyans chant slogans and wave Palestinian and Libyan national flags as they march in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Mahmud Turkia / AFP
Libyans chant slogans and wave Palestinian and Libyan national flags as they march in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Mahmud Turkia / AFP

Several hundred people protested in Tripoli and other Libyan cities late Tuesday over the deadly strike on a Gaza hospital, according to AFP journalists.

In Tripoli, hundreds of demonstrators of all ages, brandishing Palestinian flags and some covering their faces with Palestinian keffiyehs, crisscrossed the streets of the city center before converging on Martyrs' Square.

They chanted slogans of support for the residents of Gaza and denounced the strike by the "Zionist enemy".

"We give our blood and our souls for Gaza," they chanted in Tripoli and similarly in Misrata, a city 200 kilometers (120 miles) west of the capital.

At least 200 people were killed Tuesday in a strike at a Gaza hospital compound, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian territory's health ministry, which blamed Israel.

For its part, the Israeli army said the strike was a rocket misfired by the Gaza-based militant group Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas.

Earlier, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, the prime minister of Libya's Tripoli-based internationally-recognized government, condemned the hospital strike, calling it a "despicable crime".

"We denounce this crime which exceeded all limits, and I call on all countries of the world and the great powers in particular, to put an end to these crimes and to open corridors to bring humanitarian aid into the besieged sector," he said on X, formerly Twitter, late Tuesday.

"Targeting medical and civilian facilities is a war crime. This aggression must stop," he said.



At Least 29 Killed in Israeli Strikes in Gaza

12 May 2025, Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Zayed: A Palestinian man mourns the loss of his loved ones killed in an Israeli attack on a school sheltering the displaced in Jabalia, after they are brought to Indonesian Hospital Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
12 May 2025, Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Zayed: A Palestinian man mourns the loss of his loved ones killed in an Israeli attack on a school sheltering the displaced in Jabalia, after they are brought to Indonesian Hospital Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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At Least 29 Killed in Israeli Strikes in Gaza

12 May 2025, Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Zayed: A Palestinian man mourns the loss of his loved ones killed in an Israeli attack on a school sheltering the displaced in Jabalia, after they are brought to Indonesian Hospital Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
12 May 2025, Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Zayed: A Palestinian man mourns the loss of his loved ones killed in an Israeli attack on a school sheltering the displaced in Jabalia, after they are brought to Indonesian Hospital Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Gaza rescuers said at least 29 people were killed and dozens wounded in Israeli strikes on the war-battered Palestinian territory on Wednesday.

“There were at least 25 martyrs and dozens wounded" in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, while another four people were killed in a strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday there is “no way” Israel will halt its war in Gaza even if a deal is reached to release more hostages.

In comments released by Netanyahu's office from a visit to wounded soldiers the previous day, the prime minister said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission. ... It means destroying Hamas.”

Any ceasefire deal reached would be temporary, the prime minister said. If Hamas were to say they would release more hostages, “we’ll take them, and then we’ll go in. But there will be no way we will stop the war,” Netanyahu said. “We can make a ceasefire for a certain period of time, but we’re going to the end.”

Netanyahu's comments are likely to complicate talks on a new ceasefire that had seemed to gain momentum after Hamas released the last living American hostage on Monday in a gesture to US President Donald Trump, who is visiting the region.