Baghdad, Oct 20: Thousands of people in Muslim countries and beyond held demonstrations on Friday in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, calling for an end to Israel’s blockade and airstrikes in the wake of a brutal incursion into southern Israel by fighters from the Hamas militant group that rules Gaza.
Demonstrators gathered in Iraq at the country’s border crossing with Jordan; in locations across Egypt; in Turkiye’s capital Ankara and its most populous city of Istanbul; and in Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea.
EGYPT
Thousands of Egyptians demonstrated in cities and towns across the North African country, in an expression of solidarity with Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In a rare move, the Egyptian government approved and even helped organise 27 locations for protesters to gather on Friday.
Since coming to power in 2013, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s government has outlawed large public protests.
Hundreds gathered in the courtyard of the Al-Azhar Mosque, the Sunni Muslim world’s foremost religious institution, in central Cairo.
While Egypt has functioning relations with both Israel and Hamas, the overwhelming majority of Egyptians harbour sympathy toward Palestinians and their desire for independence.
Over the past week, el-Sissi has publicly criticised Israel, accusing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of trying to liquidate the Palestinian cause by pushing Gaza’s inhabitants onto Egyptian territory.
Turkiye
In Turkiye, where the government has declared three days of mourning in solidarity with the victims of a blast at a Gaza hospital, thousands of people staged protests outside mosques following Friday prayers in Istanbul and in the capital, Ankara.
In Istanbul, protesters affiliated with Islamic groups waved Turkish and Palestinian flags, held up placards and chanted slogans denouncing Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“Stop the genocide!” and “Murderer Israel get out of Palestine” some of the placards read.
About a dozen men, wearing red-stained doctors’ coats, carried dolls depicting dead babies to protest the hospital blast, while some of the protesters set fire to an effigy of the Israeli prime minister and an Israeli flag.
IRAQ
Hundreds of Iraqi protesters gathered at the western Trebil border crossing near Jordan in a demonstration organized by the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Iran-backed Shia political groups and militias in Iraq.
The pro-Iran coalition also called for a protest in Baghdad near the main gate of the highly fortified international zone, where the US Embassy is located, to condemn its endorsement of Israel in the ongoing war with Hamas.
Their rival, Iraq’s firebrand Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the most influential in the country, issued a call Thursday for Arab nations bordering Israel, notably Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, to engage in what he called peaceful demonstrations at their borders.
The protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted “No to Israel” before praying in the presence of religious clerics.
MALAYSIA
Some 1,000 Muslims marched along a busy thoroughfare in Kuala Lumpur after Friday prayers, slamming Israel as a bully and calling for an end to the killing in Gaza.
Waving Palestinian flags, the protesters gathered outside the US Embassy that was under heavy security to protest America’s support for Israel.
“Israel is just a big bully, and they are cowards because they are targeting the children, the hospital. Those (Palestinians) are helpless because they are denied all the basic things in life to survive, and yet they (Israel) complained they are being bullied by Hamas,” said retiree Salwa Tamrin.
INDONESIA
In Indonesia’s capital, demonstrators marched from several mosques to the heavily guarded US Embassy in Jakarta to denounce American support for Israel and demand Similar protests also took place in front of the United Nations mission, a few kilometres (miles) from the embassy, and in the compound of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Authorities estimated that about 1,000 people participated in the rallies across Jakarta following Friday prayers in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
Protesters who marched to the US Embassy halted traffic along the way as they chanted “God is great,” and “Save Palestinians.”
Some protesters burned portraits of US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
SOUTH KOREA
In South Korea’s capital, dozens of protesters chanted slogans, waved Palestinian flags and raised anti-Israel banners.
“Free, Free Palestinians!” the protesters shouted, while holding banners that read “We stand with Gaza” and “Stop the massacre by Israel!” “Please care about human lives. That’s all I am thinking about,” said Elshafei Mohamed, an Egyptian student in Seoul. “If we want to really help, we need to supply Gaza with humanitarian aid at once.” (AP)
