Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — "The eyes of truth will never be blinded," protesters' placards read, as Palestinian journalists wore eye patches on Sunday to decry the wounding of a colleague in the occupied West Bank.

Muath Amarneh has been in an Israeli hospital since he was hit in the eye Friday during confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinian demonstrators in the village of Surif, close to Hebron in the southern West Bank.

Dozens of Palestinian journalists rallied Sunday — protesting with one eye covered in solidarity.

Amarneh, who is being treated in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, said he was some way from the protesters when he was hit by what he believes was Israeli fire.

"After the clashes started, I was standing to the side wearing a flak jacket with press markings and a helmet," the freelance cameraman told AFP on Sunday.

"Suddenly I felt something hit my eye, I thought it was a rubber bullet or a stone. I put my hand to my eye and found nothing."

"I couldn't see and my eye was completely gone."

He said doctors at the hospital told him a fragment of metal, about 2 centimetres long, pierced the eye and settled behind it near the brain.

Amarneh's cousin Tareq, accompanying him in hospital, said doctors planned to extract the metal but changed their minds after discovering they could also damage the right eye or even trigger bleeding in the brain.

A spokesperson for the Israeli forces denied that the photographer was targeted, saying fire was "not directed at all" towards him.

"The security forces operated in the area in front of dozens of rioters, some of them masked, who threw stones at officers and burned tyres," Israeli forces spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

"The response by the forces was using non-lethal means in order to disperse the rioters." 

Amarneh, who comes from the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, claimed he was targeted as a journalist. 

“There is an unnatural and ugly targeting of journalists,” the father-of-two said. 

Solidarity sit-in 

Since the incident Palestinian journalists have launched a campaign, with protests in several cities in the West Bank. 

In Bethlehem on Sunday, Israeli forces dispersed a sit-in by journalists at the checkpoint north of the city, an AFP journalist said.

Demonstrators wore eye patches and held signs aloft.

Tear gas cannisters were fired by the border police, the journalist said.

Seven people were lightly wounded, according to Palestinian health officials.

In the city of Tulkarem, about 250 journalists took part in a sit-in to show solidarity, according to journalists present.

A video and photos of Amarneh spread immediately after his injury, with journalists trying to carry him with blood flowing from his left eye.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says 60 journalists have been hit by live ammunition this year, the majority in Gaza — an enclave where violent weekly protests along the border often lead to dozens of demonstrators being wounded.

BAGHDAD — Iraqis flooded the streets of the capital and southern cities on Sunday in a general strike that bolstered the weeks-long movement demanding a government overhaul.

Sit-ins have become the go-to tactic for the rallies that erupted in early October in rage over corruption, a lack of jobs and an out-of-touch political class.

They have resisted efforts by security forces to snuff them out and on Sunday, thousands came out across the country after activists called for a general strike.

In the southern hotspots of Kut, Najaf, Diwaniyah and Nasiriyah, schools and government offices were shut as swelling crowds hit the streets.

Protesters cut roads in the oil-rich port city of Basra by burning tyres and in Hillah, south of Baghdad, students and other activists massed in front of the provincial headquarters. 

"We'll keep up our protest and general strike with all Iraqis until we force the government to resign," said Hassaan Al Tufan, a lawyer and activist.

In Baghdad hundreds of students skipped class to gather in Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the beating heart of the protest movement.

“No politics, no parties, this is a student awakening!” read one banner carried by young Iraqis with rucksacks. 

They waved the Iraqi tricolour, marching north from Tahrir to the nearby Khallani Square.

Security forces had pulled back from their positions along that street early on Saturday and demonstrators spilled out into those neighbourhoods and onto the nearby Al Sinek Bridge.

They immediately set up tents on a first segment of the bridge, facing off against riot police stationed behind two layers of thick concrete blast walls. 

Just beyond those barriers was the embassy of neighbouring Iran, which protesters have criticised for propping up the government they want to bring down.

“We students are here to help the other protesters, and we won’t retreat a single step,” said a teenager wearing thick black-framed glasses.

Speaking anonymously because he said he had been threatened for his involvement in the anti-government movement, he said hundreds of teenagers had skipped class.

Nearby, a volunteer medic in plastic surgeons’ gloves urged labourers across Iraq to join the strike. 

“Everyone should have a time set aside to take part in the protest,” he said.

The government has proposed a laundry list of reforms in recent weeks but demonstrators have brushed them off as too little, too late in a country ranked the 12th most corrupt in the world by Transparency International.

“These steps, these reforms are just an opiate for the masses. Nothing more, nothing less,” another protester said on Sunday.

Pointing across the river to the area where parliament, the premier’s office and other key buildings are, he insisted the protesters wanted “new faces”. 

“There are so many capable young people in Iraq who are deprived — and unfortunately those are the guys that rule us?” he said. 

BEIRUT — Lebanon's former finance minister has backed down from becoming the protest-hit country's new prime minister, after reports of his nomination sparked ire among demonstrators railing against the ruling elite.

Wealthy 75-year-old businessman Mohammed Safadi said on Saturday it would be difficult to form a "harmonious" government in the country rocked by a month of unprecedented nationwide protests demanding radical reform.

The tycoon said in a statement that he hoped outgoing prime minister Saad Hariri, who resigned on October 29 under pressure from the street, would be reinstated.

Protesters, who see Safadi as emblematic of a corrupt and incompetent establishment, had reacted angrily on Friday to media reports that key political players had chosen him for the top job.

Although there was no official confirmation of his nomination, demonstrators gathered in front of one of his properties in his hometown of Tripoli to protest against what they regarded as a provocation.

It came as the US embassy in Lebanon on Saturday expressed support for the cross-sectarian protest movement that has swept the Middle Eastern country since October 17.

“We support the Lebanese people in their peaceful demonstrations and expressions of national unity,” the embassy said on Twitter.

Several mass rallies are planned for Sunday in cities across Lebanon to keep up the pressure on the country’s rulers, widely seen as irretrievably corrupt and unable to deal with a deepening economic crisis.

The government has stayed on in a caretaker capacity since stepping down.

Some local players, notably the powerful pro-Iranian Shiite movement Hizbollah, have accused “external parties” and Western embassies of supporting the popular uprising, including through financial backing.

On Saturday, a so-called “revolution bus” traversed the multireligious country from north to south, decorated with the names of protest hotbeds.

According to protesters, the initiative sought to break down geographical and sectarian barriers and overcome the collective trauma of the 1975-1990 civil war.

BAGHDAD — Anti-government demonstrators spread to a second bridge in the Iraqi capital Saturday after security forces retreated from a key area where they had clashed with protesters, AFP correspondents said.

Sit-ins have become the go-to tactic for the regime change movement that erupted in early October, with a general strike annnounced by activists for Sunday.

Protesters have occupied Baghdad's Tahrir (Liberation) Square since October 24, spilling over onto four bridges crossing the river Tigris.

The bridges link east Baghdad to the city's west, including the Green Zone where the prime minister's office, parliament and foreign embassies are based.

Security forces retook three of those bridges and nearby districts more than two weeks ago, pinning the protesters back in Tahrir and on Al Jumhuriyah Bridge with volleys of tear gas, live ammunition and even machinegun fire.

On Saturday morning, Iraqi units pulled back from some of those areas and crowds of protesters chased them down, resuming their sit-in at the mouth of Al Sinek Bridge.

"The security forces withdrew to another concrete barrier on Al Sinek," one protester told AFP. 

An elderly woman, who had travelled from the southern port city of Basra to join the rallies, cheered in support.

"You didn't just lose us, you lost all of Iraq!" she said, addressing Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi.

"Get out, get out, there's no place for you here. Tonight, we'll be in the Green Zone," she said.

Dozens climbed up into a large parking complex near the bridge, unfurling a sign in support of demonstrators in nearby Tahrir.

Others set up checkpoints around Tahrir, the morning after a bomb blast that shook the protesters.

On Friday night, at least one person was killed and more than a dozen wounded in Tahrir when explosives beneath a parked car detonated, Iraq’s state security forces said.

Small clusters of men deployed around the square to search all those entering it throughout the day on Saturday.

“We had a security breach yesterday and this explosion happened,” said Abu Karrar Al Basrawi, a middle-aged man from Basra volunteering for the search.

“But we’ve multiplied our checkpoints so it doesn’t happen again,” he told AFP.

Activists and medics have described a climate of fear setting in around Tahrir, saying that anonymous threats, kidnappings and even killings are an attempt to snuff out the movement.

Late on Friday, activist Adnan Rustum was shot dead near his home in Baghdad, his relatives said. 

And on Saturday, a person died of wounds sustained the previous day in protests in the southern city of Nasiriyah.

More than 330 people have been killed since the protests erupted in October and over 15,000 have been wounded, but officials are not releasing updated or precise figures.

BEIRUT — Lebanese protesters demanding radical reform have reacted with anger to the reported designation of a new prime minister they regard as emblematic of a failed political system.

According to senior officials speaking on condition of anonymity and Lebanese press reports, key political players agreed that Mohammed Safadi should be tasked with forming the next government.

Outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned on October 29 — nearly two weeks into the unprecedented nationwide protests demanding the removal of a ruling elite seen as corrupt and incompetent.

President Michel Aoun has said he will support the formation of a government including technocrats but has not yet announced consultations over a new line-up, and there was no official confirmation that Safadi had been designated.

Demonstrators in his hometown of Tripoli wasted no time in rejecting Safadi, however, and gathered on Friday in front of one of his properties to protest against a reported nomination they regard as a provocation.

“Choosing Mohammed Safadi for prime minister proves that the politicians who rule us are in a deep coma, as if they were on another planet,” said Jamal Badawi, 60.

Another protester said that as a business tycoon and former minister, Safadi epitomised the political class that the protest movement wants to remove.

“He’s an integral part of this leadership’s fabric,” said Samer Anous, a university professor. “Safadi does not meet the aspirations of the popular uprising in Lebanon.”

Demonstrators also rallied on Friday night outside Safadi’s home in Beirut.

“Mohammed Safadi is corrupt and we are here to say that the revolutionaries are categorically opposed to see him at the head of the government,” said protester Ali Noureddin.

Bank strikes 

A protest was also planned at Zaytuna Bay, a luxury marina in central Beirut run by a company that Safadi chairs and that many say encroaches on public land.

Several dozen private hospitals across the country closed their doors to patients — except for emergencies — to protest shortages of essential goods following delays in payments by the state.

Last week, the head of the syndicate of private hospitals, Suleiman Haroun, said that medical “stocks in the country will not last more than a month”.

A lack of access to the US currency meant the situation could deteriorate fast, he warned.

Banks, which have restricted access to dollars since the start of the protests, remained closed after employees went on strike over alleged mistreatment by customers, while many school and university classes were disrupted again.

For two decades the Lebanese pound has been pegged to the greenback at around 1,500 to the dollar, with both currencies used interchangeably in daily life.

On Friday, S&P Global Ratings downgraded Lebanon’s sovereign debt, lowering its credit ratings to “CCC/C” from “B-/B” with a negative outlook.

It said the twin political and economic crisis had hit investor confidence and constrained the government’s funding model, which relies on deposit inflows.

The move came after Moody’s rating agency also downgraded Lebanon’s sovereign debt earlier this month.

The army, meanwhile, said it had arrested 20 demonstrators on Friday after soldiers were targeted as they attempted to reopen roads closed by protesters.

Nine were later released, seven were held for questioning and four were transferred to the custody of military police, the army said without giving further details.

GAZA CITY — Israel targeted Hamas in air strikes on Gaza early Saturday after rockets were fired at it from the Palestinian enclave, Israeli forces said, two days after a fragile ceasefire began.

Hamas, the Islamist movement that has de facto control over the Gaza Strip, had been spared the brunt of Israeli bombardment during last week's flare-up.

A ceasefire has been in place since Thursday morning.

The army said it launched Saturday's strikes after "two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory" and were intercepted by air defences.

It was not immediately known who fired the rockets. Palestinian security sources said the Israeli strikes were aimed at two Hamas sites in the north of the territory.

There were no reports of casualties.

It was the first time Hamas had been hit since this week's assault began with Israel's targeted killing of a top Islamic Jihad commander early on Tuesday.

That strike triggered almost immediate retaliatory rocket fire from Islamic Jihad.

After two days of fighting which killed 34 Palestinians and no Israelis, a ceasefire was agreed.

But it has so far been precarious, with fire coming from both sides after the agreement went into effect.