Skirmishes as Protesters Rally in Awkar against Trump Plan

Several protesters were injured Sunday as security forces used pepper spray against stone-throwing demonstrators rallying against U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan near the U.S. embassy in Awkar.

The protesters were treated for fainting and suffocation injuries.

The demo, organized by mainly leftist Lebanese and Palestinian groups, was held under the slogan “Down with the Deal of Shame”.

Security forces had deployed heavily in the area and installed security barriers hundreds of meters away from the embassy premises.

A force from the army’s Commando Regiment meanwhile deployed on balconies around the demo site.

"Death to America! Death to Israel! We will die and Palestine survive," some of the demonstrators chanted.

The U.S. plan would grant the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank, while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Around noon the protesters removed the barbed wire and reached a metal fence set up by security forces. Police used pepper spray to hold back some of the demonstrators, with at least three protesters being carried away.

"I came here to defend my rights and those of my children as Palestinians," said Etab, a Palestinian refugee living in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

"We will not accept handing over our land," she told AFP.

Abdullah Mahmoud, an 18-year-old Palestinian, criticized the "failed" plan.

"It won't pass as long as the Palestinian people are still standing," he said.

"The right to return is an individual and collective right," another protest sign read.

Later in the day, the protesters dispersed from the area without any serious clashes.

On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to cut security ties with both Israel and the U.S. in a speech at an Arab League meeting in response to the U.S. plan. Arab foreign ministers there joined in blasting the plan and calling it a setback to Mideast peace efforts.

Lebanon is home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. There have been protests in the country's 12 refugee camps since Trump unveiled the proposal in Washington.