Protesters decry Trump's 'deal of shame' outside Lebanon's US embassy

Lebanon is home to a significant Palestinian refugee population who, under the new plan, may lose their right of return

Lebanese demonstrators wave a Palestinian flag during a demonstration against the US peace proposal near the US embassy in Beirut. AFP 

Over a hundred people gathered outside the United States embassy in Beirut on Sunday, shouting "down with the deal of shame" in response to Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan, which was announced last week.

The state-run National News Agency reported that some protesters tore through barbed wire that had been set up hundreds of metres away from the embassy, which is located in Awkar district, about 12 kilometres north of Beirut.

The protesters, both Lebanese and Palestinian, advanced as far as an iron gate erected to block the road to the embassy, before pelting it with stones, the NNA reported.

A banner was strung up on the gate that read: “No peace, no negotiation, no recognition, our choice is the resistance and we refuse to compromise”.

In Lebanon, the term "the resistance" usually refers to political parties close to Hezbollah, which gained popularity after it successfully pushed Israel out of south Lebanon in 2000 after 18 years of occupation.

Security measures outside the embassy were increased in anticipation of the protest.

Footage of the protest, which ended in the afternoon, showed people carrying Palestinian flags and the flags of left-wing political movements such as the Communist party and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which advocates building a Syrian state spanning from Cyprus to Iraq.

The US embassy is often the target of protests against the country's policies in the region.

Thousands of Arabs also took to the streets on Sunday in neighbouring Israel to object to the peace plan.

The plan outlines a potential land swap that would render northern Arab communities a Palestinian enclave behind an Israeli security barrier.

The plan has been widely criticised as being pro-Israeli, and granting Israel most of what it has sought from a peace deal.

Most of Lebanon’s Palestinian population are refugees and the descendants of refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

They live in the country's 12 overpopulated camps, which were set up by the United Nations.

The Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee, an official body headed by the prime minister, estimated the number of Palestinian refugees at about 174,000 in 2017, but the UN says there are as many as 450,000.

The Palestinian population is not allowed to buy land and is barred from acquiring Lebanese citizenship, as well as taking on white-collar jobs.