Tens of thousands rally around the world against Israel’s Gaza bombardment
Al Jazeera :
Tens of thousands of people have poured onto the streets around the world in support of the Palestinians as Israel prepares for a possible ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Protesters denounced Israel’s heavy bombardment of the besieged enclave that has so far killed more than 1,500 people and it came after an unprecedented attack by Hamas, the group running Gaza, killed more than 1,300 people in Israel.
In Beirut, thousands of supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group waved Lebanese, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, chanting slogans in support of Gaza and calling for “death to Israel.”
The Iranian-backed militant group in neighboring Lebanon has launched sporadic attacks since the Hamas assault, but largely stayed on the sidelines of the war.
However, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general warned that it would be “on the lookout” for the United States and British naval vessels heading to the Mediterranean Sea. U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, have repeatedly warned Iran and the regional militias Tehran backs to stay out of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“Your battleships do not interest us, nor do your statements frighten us,” Naim Kassim said at a rally in a southern suburb of Beirut. “When the time is right to take action, we will do so.”
In Baghdad, large crowds filled Tahrir Square in the centre of the Iraqi capital for protests called by the influential Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
In Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, demonstrators took to the streets waving Yemeni and Palestinian flags.
After prayers in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, some worshippers stepped on US and Israeli flags, in a sign of disrespect.
Some 1,000 Muslims rallied in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after Friday prayers to show solidarity with the Palestinians.
Chanting “Free Palestine” and “Crush the Zionists”, they burned two effigies draped with Israeli flags.
Islamic leaders in Indonesia appealed to all mosques in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation to pray for peace and safety for the Palestinian people.
The chairman of the Indonesian Mosque Council had urged all mosques to perform the Qunut Nazilahto prayer, one made for protection, to ask for God’s help so that “the conflict in the Gaza Strip would end quickly”.
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, protesters – including Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp formed after the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation – also rallied.
“I tell the people not to leave their homes otherwise they will be like our grandparents who left Palestine and came to Syria but never returned,” Ahmad Saeed, a 23-year-old Palestinian living in Syria, said, referring to the 1948 war.
After Friday prayers, Egyptian demonstrators ringed the historic Al-Azhar Mosque in downtown Cairo, the Sunni Muslim world’s foremost religious institution, chanting that Israel remained their enemy “generation after generation.”
They repeated the traditionally nationalistic slogan, “We give our souls and blood to Al-Aqsa.”