Thousands around the world demonstrate over Gaza

Nearly 20,000 people marched through southern Lebanon on Saturday to protest Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, as thousands also took to the streets in several European cities to show their anger. Similar protests have occurred almost daily in the Middle East and elsewhere since Israel launched its operation more than two weeks ago to stop rocket fire from the militant Palestinian group Hamas. The demonstrations have been fueled by the rising death toll in Gaza, which currently stands at over 800 Palestinians. Thirteen Israelis have also died in the fighting. Saturday's rally in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh was organized by the militant Hezbollah group, a strong ally of Hamas that fought its own war with Israel in the summer of 2006. The thousands of demonstrators who marched through the streets waved Lebanese and Palestinian flags and some carried posters of bloody Palestinian children. "Gaza is the nation's battle," read a banner carried by several of the protesters. Thousands of people also protested in several cities across Europe, with the largest crowds in Germany, where some 20,000 took to the streets in Berlin and two other cities. An estimated 8,500 rallied at Berlin's Alexanderplatz and then marched through downtown to the city's main train station. Some 10,000 people also marched in the western city of Duisburg, calling for an immediate end to the violence and a lifting of the blockade of Gaza. They carried signs with slogans like "Freedom for Palestine" and "Down with the murdering of children." Thousands of demonstrators in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh gathered in front of the American consulate to toss shoes at the 19th century town house. Sky News television footage showed police recoiling as a storm of shoes flew over their heads. "They were just flying, like hail through the sky," protest organizer Ian Hood said in a telephone interview. He said protesters were angry at the U.S. for failing to stop the bloodshed in Gaza. In London, about 12,000 demonstrators rallied in Hyde Park in support of the Palestinian cause, carrying placards marked "Gaza: Stop the massacre" and chanting "free, free Palestine." Saturday's protests were largely peaceful, but more than 60 people were injured during a large demonstration the previous day in Algeria's capital, many by stone throwing, the Interior Ministry said. Crowd tries to attack US consulate in Pakistan Security forces used tear gas and batons to repel anti-Israel protesters who tried to attack a U.S. consulate in Pakistan on Sunday, as tens of thousands of people demonstrated worldwide against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. Some 2,000 protesters in the Pakistani port city of Karachi burned U.S. flags and chanted anti-Israel slogans, and several hundred of them marched on the U.S. Consulate, senior police official Ameer Sheikh said. "They were in a mood to attack," Sheikh said. "They were carrying bricks, stones and clubs." In Spain, as many as 100,000 people attended rallies in Madrid and the southwestern city of Seville, urging Israel to "Stop the massacre in Gaza" and calling for peace initiatives. The death of children in the Gaza assault has become an enduring theme at protests. Children carrying effigies of bloody babies headed a march attended by thousands in Brussels, Belgium. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, demonstrators held up dolls wrapped in red-stained shrouds and photographs of bloodied children. A few thousand people marched in largely peaceful pro-Palestinian rallies in the Italian cities of Rome, Naples and Verona. In Rome, municipal authorities were dispatched to erase graffiti–including Stars of David and swastikas–that had been scrawled on Jewish-owned stores and restaurants overnight. Philippine policeman used shields to disperse Filipino student activists outside the U.S. Embassy in Manila to condemn the Israeli assault in Gaza. They held signs reading, "Stop U.S.-Israel Aggression against Palestine." About 100 members of a leftist students' organization marched in Tokyo against the Israeli military action. The biggest protest in Latin America has taken place in Argentina, where some 20,000 people marched Tuesday from the Obelisk in downtown Buenos Aires to the Israeli Embassy. Arab and student groups organized the march, along with the Argentine Communist Party and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights organization. The protesters carried Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese flags and signs saying "Israel: Leave Gaza now" and "We are all Palestinians." The march was peaceful, but some of the protesters threw paint and shoes against the embassy. "The fifth largest army of the world is fighting against a helpless society," Alejandro Salomon, the president of the Confederation of Argentina Arab Entities, said in an interview Wednesday. "We are protesting against the small effort made by the international community to stop this manslaughter."