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"Crowds of thousands swept into the streets of cities around the Middle East on Sunday to denounce Israel's air assault on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
From Lebanon to Iran, Israel's adversaries used the weekend assault to marshal crowds into the streets for noisy demonstrations. And among regional allies there was also discontent: The prime minister of Turkey, one of the few Muslim countries to have relations with Israel, called the air assault a "crime against humanity."
Several of Sunday's protests turned violent. A crowd of anti-Israel protesters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul became a target for a suicide bomber on a bicycle.
In Lebanon, police fired tear gas to stop dozens of demonstrators from reaching the Egyptian Embassy. Some in the crowd hurled stones at the embassy compound. It was unclear if anyone was hurt.
Egypt, which has served as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians as well as between Hamas and its rival Fatah, has been criticized for joining Israel in closing its borders with Gaza. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Hamas to renew its truce with Israel: "There has been a calm and we should work to restore it."
France also called for the truce to be renewed and rallied European nations to use "all their weight" to stop the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
"We have entered a new spiral of despair," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told the Journal du Dimanche in an interview published Sunday. "The truce must be restored."
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