Gaza protests target U.S.

KARACHI, Pakistan – Security forces used tear gas and batons to repel anti-Israel protesters who tried to attack a U.S. consulate in Pakistan on Sunday, as tens of thousands in Europe, the Middle East and Asia demonstrated against Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

A protest in the Belgian capital that drew 30,000 turned violent as well, with demonstrators overturning cars and smashing shop windows. And in Manila, Philippines, police used shields to disperse students protesting outside the U.S. Embassy.

Some 2,000 protesters in the Pakistani port city of Karachi burned U.S. flags and chanted anti-Israel slogans, and several hundred of them marched on the U.S. Consulate, senior police official Ameer Sheikh said.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Islamabad said the protesters did not get close to the consulate, which was closed Sunday.

In Spain, as many as 100,000 attended rallies in Madrid and the southwestern city of Seville, urging Israel to “stop the massacre in Gaza” and calling for peace initiatives.

In Belgium, children carrying effigies of bloody babies headed the march, which later turned violent before police intervened with water cannons and arrested 10 protesters.