TEHRAN: Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the British and French embassies in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday, an AFP correspondent said, as regional anger grew over a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital.
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.
“Death to France and England,“ protesters shouted, throwing eggs at the walls of the French embassy compound in the Iranian capital.
The gatherings ended peacefully at around 3:00 am (2330 GMT Tuesday).
Israel and the United States do not have embassies in Tehran in the absence of diplomatic relations with Iran.
Several thousand people also gathered in Palestine Square in central Tehran to voice their anger, according to an AFP photographer.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared a day of “public mourning” on Wednesday and said the strike on the hospital would turn against Israel and its US ally.
“The flames of the US-Israeli bombs, dropped this evening on the Palestinian victims injured at the... hospital in Gaza, will soon consume the Zionists,“ Raisi said, according to the IRNA agency.
“Iran is in mourning,“ he added.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called in a message on X for “global unity” against Israel, a “regime more hated than the Islamic State”.
Tehran also called on Arab countries that have established relations with Israel to break them. - AFP
