As we reported, there was trouble outside multiple embassies on Tuesday night in the wake of the Gaza hospital explosion. Hamas blamed the hospital explosion on Israel but Israel denied that and the evidence at this point seems to indicate it was caused by the failure of a Hamas rocket.
Hundreds marched on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, and a fire was set near the Embassy after Hezbollah called for action.
BREAKING NEWS: Protesters march on US embassy in Beirut, fire set nearbyhttps://t.co/ImMIWoDRFj
— Wendy Patterson (@wendyp4545) October 18, 2023
A U.S. flag at the Embassy was briefly pulled down and replaced by a Palestinian flag. Rioters also threw rocks at the French Embassy. Hundreds also tried to get into the Israeli Embassy in Amman, Jordan. There were reports of demonstrations outside other embassies as well.
Iran has been making increasingly menacing comments, and they put out two chilling messages. One was from the Iranian Embassy in Syria, which said "Time is up" in Hebrew and had an "Al Aqsa Flood" hashtag, which was the name of the attack on Israel.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) October 18, 2023
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also posted that "Time is over" and threatened Israel.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) October 18, 2023
"After the terrible crime of the Zionist regime in the bombing and massacre of more than a thousand innocent women and children in the hospital, the time has come for the global unity of humanity against this fake regime more hated than ISIS and its killing machine. Time is OVER."
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad also called for action.
'Our message to our Arab and Islamic peoples and to the free people of the world: Everyone has the duty to participate in mass demonstrations, not to leave the streets, and to confront the occupation embassies and the countries that support it,' a PIJ spokesperson said on social media
"The regional dynamic is taking a sharp downward turn tonight & US policy crumbling into the sand," US analyst Charles Lister said.
Meanwhile, Amir-Abdollahian arrived in Saudi Arabia to talk about the situation.
⚡️⚡️⚡️ 🇮🇷 Iranian Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦.
— Jason Jay Smart (@officejjsmart) October 18, 2023
What Iran 🇮🇷 & Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 decide can have a vast impact of how the world changes over the next 72 hours. pic.twitter.com/lyccZQjNxj
That's perhaps one of the most troubling things of all, as the situation in Gaza has now brought Iran and Saudi Arabia closer, as I wrote before. Under Trump, the Saudis were moving toward normalizing relationships with Israel, and now Saudi Arabia is blaming the hospital explosion on Israel and called it a "heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces."
Meanwhile, Joe Biden, with all his ability to gaffe, is in Israel, and the summit that he was supposed to be holding with Egypt and Jordan over the attack on Israel has already failed and been canceled because of the hospital explosion.
Unfortunately, having Biden in charge was a very bad move, and we're reaping some of the consequences of that weakness and bad policy now as things devolve into chaos.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly indicated the Iranian Foreign Minister traveled to Syria rather than Saudi Arabia. We apologize to our readers for the error.
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