Thousands rally for Palestinians across Middle East

AFP | Tehran                              

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com    

Thousands of people demonstrated Friday across Iran and several Arab countries to mark Jerusalem Day in support of the Palestinian cause, amid a surge in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Recent weeks have seen deadly attacks and clashes in Israel, annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, as well as cross-border fire between Israeli forces and militants in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.

The rallies in Iran, an annual fixture since the 1979 Islamic revolution, are held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

"Death to Israel and to America," protesters chanted in Tehran, waving Palestinian and Iranian flags, as well as those of Lebanon's Iran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah, and burning Israeli and US flags.

Similar rallies took place in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, in Lebanon's capital Beirut and the city of Baalbek, and in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon, AFP correspondents said.

Yahya Sinwar, Hamas chief in Gaza, addressed thousands of supporters of the Islamist movement in the enclave.

"I say to the leaders of Arab and Islamic countries that condemnations are no longer sufficient," Sinwar said.

"There has to be a strategic change in your path –- it is ending normalisation, closing the embassies and supporting the Palestinian people's resistance."

- 'Supporting the resistance' -

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi spoke via video-link to Gaza.

"Let everyone know that we have no hesitation in supporting the resistance," he said.

In Jerusalem itself, vast crowds attended Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa -- some 130,000 people according to the Israeli police, and 250,000 according to the Jordanian Waqf Islamic affairs council which administers the mosque compound.

Afterwards, masked youths waved flags of Hamas and its armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, an AFP photographer reported, with Israeli police saying they had arrested eight people.

Rallies were held in major Iranian cities including Tabriz, Hamedan, Yazd, Bandar Abbas and Abadan, images broadcast on state television showed.

"The Palestinians are actively confronting Israeli aggression from Gaza to the heart of Tel Aviv," Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said.

"Yesterday they (Palestinians) were fighting with stones, and now they hit (Israel) with rockets," he added.

The pro-Palestinian rallies follow months of unrest in Iran sparked by the September death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young women arrested for an alleged breach of strict dress rules.

Tehran has accused foreign adversaries including Israel of fomenting the protests.

"We have witnessed conspiracies by enemies in recent times," Ghalibaf told the crowd in Tehran. "If it wasn't for God's grace and our nation's intelligence... they would have had their dreams."

"It shows we must act now with greater focus and try to eliminate our weak points," he added, pointing specifically to Iran's economy battered by years of sanctions.

"Today, the most important fight of all officials is against high costs, because it is a weak point exploited by the enemy," Ghalibaf said.

- 'We are coming' -

In Baghdad, where pro-Tehran parties are in power, a few hundred people marched.

"God willing, the end of Israel will be in the years to come," read one sign.

In Syria, Palestinian fighters marched through the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, waving Syrian, Palestinian and Iranian flags.

"Jerusalem, we are coming," they chanted.

In Lebanon, Palestinian factions paraded through the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp, a Hezbollah stronghold.

"We will not abandon Palestine, the people of Palestine, or the holy sites in Palestine. This is our commitment and this is our faith," Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised statement.

"The resistance... is confident while the Israeli enemy is scared and terrified."