• Thousands of Lebanese protesters, some waving Palestinian flags, gathered late into Tuesday night outside the U.S. embassy 
  • It comes just hours after a blast at a hospital in Gaza that Hamas claims killed at least 500 people 
  • Israel’s military denied responsibility for the bombing, saying military intelligence suggested the hospital was hit by a failed Hamas rocket launch 

Smoke has been used to try and disperse the thousands of protests that stormed near the US Embassy in Lebanon and, at one point, replaced the American flag with a Palestinian one at the complex.

The protests are some of the large gatherings happening in the Middle East after a blast at a hospital in Gaza that Hamas claims killed at least 500 people and has more trapped under rubble.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006, called for a day of protest in Beirut on Tuesday in response to the attack.

Thousands of Lebanese protesters, some waving Palestinian flags, gathered late into Tuesday night outside the US embassy in response to the incident. Others gathered outside the French embassy in Beirut.

Video shows the protestor scaling a barb-wire-topped fence to replace a US flag with a Palestinian version. Later, footage showed gas being sprayed at the protestors to push them back.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the State Department for comment on the situation. It’s unclear if any protestors have breached the fence or if any embassy personnel have been hurt.

It’s unclear if the protesters are marching on the old embassy in Lebanon or the new one that began construction in April 2017, a 43-acre compound that has caused controversy in the country.

Initial press release described it as a $1billion project, according to The Independent. Objectors complained about the price tag and the size of the embassy given so few Americans travel to Lebanon.

Dorothy Shea, the United States’ Ambassador to Lebanon, was previously the political officer at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, where she worked on the Israeli-Palestine peace process.

The complex is now under siege after the bombing. Israel’s military denied responsibility and suggested the hospital was hit by a failed rocket launch by the enclave’s Palestinian Islamic Jihad military group.

Islamic Jihad denied that any of its rockets were involved in the hospital blast.

In denouncing what the group said was a strike by Israel, Hezbollah said in its statement: ‘The attack reveals the true criminal face of this entity and its sponsor … the United States, which bears direct and complete responsibility for this massacre.’

Video from the hospital showed fire engulfing the building and the hospital’s grounds strewn with bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of people were reportedly seeking shelter at the hospital at the time of the blast, which Hamas has called a ‘horrific massacre’ and a ‘crime of genocide’.

About 6,000 Palestinians were sheltering at the hospital, which is reportedly funded by the Anglican Church.

The strike, soon after at least six were killed in a strike on a nearby UN-run school during Israeli bombardments, escalates the 11-day-old war, which has already claimed thousands of lives on both sides.

It also happened just hours before US President Joe Biden was due to touch down in the Middle East for high-stakes talks on the war, which was cancelled as summit host Jordan and the wider region mourned the victims, the White House said.

Biden’s visit to Israel was still going ahead.