Israel Policies Protested in Beirut
BEIRUT — Thousands of Islamic militants marched through Muslim West Beirut on Friday chanting anti-Israeli slogans and vowing to avenge 21 Palestinians killed during recent unrest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Witnesses said about 1,500 members of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God) movement joined the demonstration led by white-turbaned Shia Muslim clerics and Iranian Ambassador Ahmad Destmalchian.
The marchers chanted “Israel, Israel, Hezbollah will not forget!” and “Death to Israel, Muslims unite against Israel!.”
In the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, an estimated 5,000 Hezbollah followers marched through the village of Rachaiya in support of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories.
“The Islamic resistance and hang glider attacks against Israeli troops are symbols that military revolution is the only way for liberation,” Hezbollah official Mohammed Yazbek told them, referring to the hang-glider attack by a guerrilla from Lebanon last month in which six Israeli soldiers were killed.
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