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RABAT: Anti-government demonstrations gripped Morocco for a fourth straight night as youth filled the streets of cities throughout the country and destruction and violence broke out in several places, according to human rights groups and local media.
With billions in investment flowing toward preparations for the 2030 World Cup, promises to fix Morocco’s strained social services haven’t quelled anger from Internet-savvy youth who launched some of the country’s biggest street protests in years.
Young Moroccans took to the streets on Tuesday clashing with security forces and decrying the dire state of many schools and hospitals. After dozens of peaceful protesters were arrested over the weekend, violence broke out Tuesday in several cities, especially in parts of Morocco where jobs are scarce and social services lacking, eyewitness video and local outlets reported.
“The right to health, education and a dignified life is not an empty slogan but a serious demand,” the organizers of the Gen Z 212 protest movement wrote in a statement published on Discord.
Still, the protests have escalated and become more destructive, particularly in cities far from where development efforts have been concentrated in Morocco. Local outlets and footage filmed by witnesses show protesters hurling rocks and setting vehicles ablaze in cities and towns in the country’s east and south, including in Inzegane and the province of Chtouka Ait Baha.
In Oujda, eastern Morocco’s largest city, a police vehicle that rammed into demonstrators in Morocco left one person injured, local human rights groups and the state news agency MAP said.
The city’s chapter of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) said that 37 protesters arrested on Monday, among them six minors, would appear in court in Oujda on Wednesday.
They’re among the hundreds that AMDH said have been apprehended, including many whose arrests were shown on video by local media and some who were detained by plainclothes officers during interviews.
“With protests scheduled to continue, we urge authorities to engage with the legitimate demands of the youth for their social, economic, and cultural rights and to address their concerns about corruption,” Amnesty International’s regional office said on Tuesday.
The “Gen Z” protests mirror similar unrest sweeping countries like Nepal and Madagascar. In some of Morocco’s largest anti-government protests in years, the leaderless movement has harnessed anger about conditions in hospitals and schools to express outrage over the government’s spending priorities.
Pointing to new stadiums under construction or renovation across the country, protesters have chanted, ‘Stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?’ Additionally, the recent deaths of eight women in public hospital in Agadir have become a rallying cry against the decline of Morocco’s health system.
The movement, which originated on platforms like TikTok and Discord popular among gamers and teenagers, has won additional backing since authorities began arresting people over the weekend, including from Morocco’s star goalkeeper Yassine Bounou and its most famous rapper El Grande Toto.
Officials have denied prioritizing World Cup spending over public infrastructure, saying problems facing the health sector were inherited from previous governments. In Morocco’s parliament, the governing majority said it would meet on Thursday to discuss health care and hospital reforms as part of a meeting headed by Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch.
Morocco’s Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to questions about the protests or arrests.

NUSEIRAT, Palestinian Territories: Israel’s defense minister issued a final warning for Gaza City residents to flee south on Wednesday, as Hamas weighed US President Donald Trump’s plan to end nearly two years of war in the Palestinian territory.

Witnesses reported heavy bombardment in Gaza’s largest urban center, as Israel Katz warned the military was tightening its encirclement of the city.

“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas operatives isolated in Gaza City,” Katz posted on X, adding that those who remained would “be considered terrorists and terrorist supporters.”

Katz said the military had captured the Netzarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip through to the western coast, a move he said cut the north of Gaza off form the south.

He added anyone leaving Gaza City for the south would have to pass through Israeli military checkpoints.

The announcement came hours after the military said it was closing the last remaining route for residents of southern Gaza to access the north.

On the ground in Gaza City, 60-year-old Rabah Al-Halabi, who lives in a tent on the premises of Al-Shifa Hospital, described relentless explosions.

“I will not leave because the situation in Gaza City is no different from the situation in the southern Gaza Strip,” he told AFP by telephone.

“All areas are dangerous, the bombing is everywhere, and displacement is terrifying and humiliating,” he said.

“We are waiting for death, or perhaps relief from God and for the truce to come.”

‘Ceasefire at any cost’

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Wednesday said that intensified military operations in Gaza City had forced it to temporarily suspend its activities there, warning that “tens of thousands... face harrowing humanitarian conditions.”

It came days after medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had been forced to suspend its work there because of Israel’s offensive.

UN agencies and some aid organizations still operate in Gaza City.

Meanwhile, Hamas mulled a peace plan put forward by Trump and backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which calls for a ceasefire, the release of hostages within 72 hours, Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

A Palestinian source close to Hamas’s leaders told AFP that “no final decision” had been made and that “the movement will likely need two to three days.”

“Hamas wants to amend some of the items such as the disarmament clause and the expulsion of Hamas,” the source said.

They added that Hamas had informed mediators of the “need to provide international guarantees for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and guarantees that Israel will not violate a ceasefire through assassinations inside or outside Gaza.”

Gaza’s civil defense agency — a rescue force operating under Hamas authority — reported that Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Gaza City on Wednesday.

When asked by AFP, the Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing swathes of the territory mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense and the Israeli military.

Fadel Al-Jadba, 26, said he would not leave Gaza City.

He said tanks were in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood and that he “would not be surprised if they advance into Al-Rimal,” where he was sheltering.

“We want a ceasefire at any cost because we are frustrated, exhausted, and find no one in the world standing with us.”

‘Two opinions’ in Hamas

Trump told reporters on Tuesday that Hamas had “about three or four days” to accept his 20-point Gaza plan, later warning that the Islamist movement would “pay in hell” if it refused.

A source familiar with negotiations taking place in the Qatari capital Doha told AFP that “two opinions exist within Hamas.”

“The first supports unconditional approval, as the priority is a ceasefire under Trump’s guarantees, with mediators ensuring Israel implements the plan,” the source said.

“The second has serious reservations regarding key clauses, rejecting disarmament and the expulsion of any Palestinian from Gaza. They favor conditional approval with clarifications reflecting Hamas’s and the resistance factions’ demands,” the source added.

Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 66,148 Palestinians, according to health ministry figures in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

These figures do not specify the number of fighters killed, but indicate that more than half of the dead are women and children.