Arab world protests over Gaza attacks

Crowds of thousands swept into the streets of cities around the Middle East today to protest against Israel’s air assault on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.

From Lebanon to Iran, Israel’s adversaries used the weekend assault to marshal crowds out onto the streets for noisy demonstrations. The protests were free of violence except for one in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that became a target for a suicide bomber on a bicycle.

In Lebanon, a Hamas official roused a crowd of about 1,000 people topped by fluttering Lebanese and Palestinian flags, promising victory, resistance and ruling out surrender. His speech was met with cries of “death to Israel” from the crowd.

The demonstrators gathered outside the United Nations office in central Beirut. After an all-night emergency session in New York, the UN’s Security Council expressed serious concern at the escalating situation in Gaza and called on Israel and the Palestinians to immediately halt all violence.

The world body’s Beirut offices were guarded by dozens of Lebanese troops, but there was no violence.

Hamas representative Osama Hamdan told the crowd that the militant group had no choice but to fight. Gaza militants have been lobbing dozens of rockets and mortars into southern Israel since a six-month truce expired over a week ago, prompting Israel’s fierce retaliation.

“We in the Hamas group and other resistance factions in Gaza know that we don’t have many alternatives. We have one alternative which is to be steadfast and resist and then we will be victorious,” Mr Hamdan said.

Mr Hamdan, who was surrounded by several bodyguards, added, “We are not people who surrender. ... When this aggression ends, the victory will be ours.”

In the capital of neighbouring Syria, more than 5,000 people marched toward the central Youssef al-Azmeh square, where they burned an Israeli and an American flag.

One demonstrator carried a banner reading, “The aggression against Gaza is an aggression against the whole Arab nation.”

“Down with America, the mother of terrorism,” read another.

In Jordan, where crowds took to the streets on Saturday, the US Embassy issued an advisory warning Americans to avoid areas of demonstrations.

Iran’s president, who has blasted Israel in speeches and said it should be “wiped off the map,” joined those condemning the Israeli strikes, calling them “criminal”.

A state TV report late on Saturday quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying Iran will stand by the Palestinians. Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the attack “genocide” and asked international bodies to defend the Palestinians.

Several hundred Iranian students and MPs held separate protests today at a Tehran square and outside the UN building in the capital.

Iran’s Red Crescent Society is also planning to send a ship loaded with medicine, food and clothing to Gaza.

In the normally politically placid streets of glitzy Dubai, hundreds of demonstrators – some draped in Palestinian flags – gathered at the Palestinian consulate.

Police prevented several attempts by protesters to move their demonstration from inside the consulate perimeter to the streets outside.

Majdei Mansour, 30, said he came to show support for his fellow countrymen. The Dubai resident has family still living in Gaza but said he’s been unable to contact them since the latest fighting.

“These protests all over the world will call international attention to the cause of Gaza,” Mr Mansour said. “This is a time for the Palestinians and Arabs to unite to fight against a common enemy.”

Demonstrations are rare in Dubai, one of seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates. The country does not have official diplomatic relations with Israel.

In Iraq, a suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up amid a crowd of about 1,300 demonstrators in Mosul who were protesting against Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza, killing one demonstrator and

wounding 16 others, Iraqi police said.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack.

Iraq’s government also condemned the airstrikes on Gaza.

Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said condemnation didn’t go far enough.

“Expressing condemnation and denunciation for what is going on against our brothers in Gaza and expressing solidarity with them by words only doesn’t mean anything in the face of the big tragedy they are facing,” he said in a statement released by office in Najaf.

“Now more than at any other time, both Arab and Islamic nations are required to take a practical stance for the sake of stopping this repeated aggression and to break the unfair besieging of these brave people,” the statement said, without giving details of the proposed stance.

About 100 people took to the streets in Baghdad’s largest Palestinian neighbourhood to protest the attacks.