Protests in Libya over Gaza hospital strike

Several hundred people protested in Tripoli and other Libyan cities late Tuesday over the deadly strike on a Gaza hospital, according to AFP journalists.

In Tripoli, hundreds of demonstrators of all ages, brandishing Palestinian flags and some covering their faces with Palestinian keffiyehs, crisscrossed the streets of the city centre before converging on Martyrs' Square.

They chanted slogans of support for the residents of Gaza and denounced the strike by the "Zionist enemy".

"We give our blood and our souls for Gaza," they chanted in Tripoli and similarly in Misrata, a city 200 kilometres (120 miles) west of the capital.

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.

Earlier, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, the prime minister of Libya's Tripoli-based internationally-recognised government, condemned the hospital strike, calling it a "despicable crime".

"We denounce this crime which exceeded all limits, and I call on all countries of the world and the great powers in particular, to put an end to these crimes and to open corridors to bring humanitarian aid into the besieged sector," he said on X, formerly Twitter, late Tuesday.

"Targeting medical and civilian facilities is a war crime. This aggression must stop," he said.