Protestors gather Tuesday at the corner of College Avenue and Front Street in Waterville as part of a protest in support of Lebanon. Dylan Tusinski/Morning Sentinel

WATERVILLE — About a dozen people gathered Tuesday morning in downtown Waterville as part of a national protest against Israel’s latest bout of bombings in Lebanon.

The “All out for Lebanon” protest was held concurrently with hundreds of others in cities across the country.

The Waterville protest was organized by the Maine Coalition for Palestine and ran alongside global protests as part of a “National day of action” organized by other protest groups, according to organizers of the Waterville event.

The protest comes days after Israel launched a wave of attacks against Lebanon, beginning with the simultaneous detonation of explosives in hundreds of pagers and walkie talkies across Lebanon last week. The attacks killed approximately 30 people and injured thousands.

Israel has since launched a wave of airstrikes on Lebanon, killing more than 550 people, largely civilians, and forcing thousands to flee their homes, according to The Associated Press.

The Israeli military has said it will continue the offensive until Hezbollah, the violent Islamic political party that governs Lebanon, is deposed.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, addressed delegates Sunday to offer some justification to his nation’s ramped up attacks.

“Last night, hundreds of thousands of Israelis slept in bomb shelters, as Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, which holds Lebanon captive, fired upon them,” Danon said at a U.N. meeting. “Since Oct. 8, over 8,000 rockets have been fired at our people, over 70,000 have been forced to flee their homes, becoming refugees in their own land.”

“Let me be clear: We are a peaceful nation. We do not seek war, nor do we desire it,” Danon said, according to The Hill, which reported Friday’s attack by Israel came after Hezbollah launched 140 rockets earlier in the day. “However, we will not stand by as our people are attacked.”

The protest at the corners of Front Street and College Avenue lasted about three hours and was met with a smattering of honks and angry shouts from drivers passing by.

Attendees at the Waterville event said Maine plays a unique role in the ongoing conflicts between Israel, Lebanon and Palestine because of the heavy presence of weapons manufacturers and the military industrial complex in the state.

Paige Mulligan, left, holds a sign Tuesday in support of Palestine and Lebanon at a protest in Waterville. The protest was organized by Maine Coalition for Palestine in response to Israel’s latest bout of bombings in Lebanon. Dylan Tusinski/Morning Sentinel

“The bombs that are hitting my friends’ villages in Lebanon are most likely U.S. bombs,” said protestor Paige Milligan of Portland. “There are so many weapons companies all over Maine. There is General Dynamics, they’re at Bath Iron Works, they’re in Saco, they’re all over.”

Milligan, a postdoctoral fellow at Bowdoin College, studies the Arabic language and previously lived in Beirut, Lebanon’s biggest city, for three years. Many of her friends there have been forced to flee their homes as the conflict escalates, she said.

“My friends, a married couple I saw when I visited in July, live in a Christian area in the south of Beirut. It’s a safe place,” Milligan said. “But they’re living at a friend’s house because their area is under threat. They basically fed the cats, locked up the house, and went to a friend’s house. It’s a lot of scrambling, a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of fear.”

While some attended the protest in support of Lebanon, others attended in opposition to Israel. One such demonstrator was Jamila Levasseur, a self-described “Jewish anti-Zionist.”

Zionism refers to a political movement that believes Judaism is a nationality as well as a religion and advocates for a Jewish nation-state on the land of what is now Israel.

“Zionism is not Judaism. It’s the idea that Israel, the country, it always comes first. Nothing else,” Levasseur said. “As a Jewish person, I feel very strongly that Israel does not stand for me, and it doesn’t stand for all Jews. They try to say they speak for all Jews, and it’s absolutely a lie.”