Thousands of protesters took to the streets in several major cities around the world on Saturday to demand an end to bloodshed in Gaza, as the conflict in the Palestinian enclave approaches its first anniversary and spreads in the wider region.

SEBLINE, Lebanon (AP) — The war in Gaza was always personal for many Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Many live in camps set up after 1948, when their parents or grandparents fled their homes in land that became Israel, and they have followed a year’s worth of news of destruction and displacement in Gaza with dismay.

As many as a thousand demonstrators at a pro-Palestinian rally in L.A. called for a cease-fire two days before the anniversary of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

Palestinians fear the crisis in Lebanon is diverting the world's attention from Gaza, where Israeli strikes killed dozens more people this week, and diminishing already dim prospects for a ceasefire a year into a war that has shattered the enclave.

Tehran backs efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon on the condition it would be backed by Hezbollah and simultaneous with a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said in Beirut on Friday.

Israel shifted some of its focus from Hamas to Hezbollah, which holds much of the power in parts of southern Lebanon and some other areas of the country.