RASHIDIYEH, Lebanon, 9 March 2003 — Thousands of Palestinians marched through a teeming refugee camp in southern Lebanon yesterday, denouncing US President George W. Bush as a “butcher” and venting anger against Israel. “Struggle, struggle against Bush the butcher and (Israeli President Ariel) Sharon the butcher,” chanted protesters, referring to the Israeli prime minister.

Some 7,000 men, women and children filled the streets in a show of anger against Israel and its ally the United States, the day after Israeli tanks and troops stormed a Gaza Strip refugee camp, carrying out raids in which 11 Palestinians were killed. Israel also killed four Hamas activists in a helicopter missile strike in Gaza yesterday. The raids followed a Palestinian suicide attack that killed 15 people on an Israeli bus.

Witnesses said protesters burned US and Israeli flags and waved Iraqi and Palestinian flags in the Rashidiyeh camp near the port city of Tyre. The demonstration yesterday in the camp echoed protests in Lebanon’s second city Tripoli on Friday where demonstrators demanded the expulsion of the US ambassador and waved pictures of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Washington is seeking a second UN resolution to authorize an invasion of Iraq and has dismissed Baghdad’s moves to disarm as too little, too late. The United States and Britain have given Saddam a March 17 deadline to get rid of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. Two Israeli reconnaissance planes and Israeli planes swooped over parts of southern Lebanon as the march went on, witnesses said. An Israeli reconnaissance plane was also spotted over south Lebanon last week.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood has called on the authorities in Amman to expel US troops from the kingdom, saying a US-led attack on Iraq would also be an aggression on Jordan, a statement said yesterday. The Brotherhood called on Jordan and Arab leaders to “expel US soldiers from Jordan and any Muslim country in order to ensure that history will not show that an Arab and Muslim country was attacked from Jordanian or Arab territory”.

The statement stressed that “any aggression on Iraq will be considered an aggression on Jordan and part of the plot to colonize the (Muslim) nation”. It also called on the Jordanian authorities to “cancel the alliances and agreements which they have signed with the Jews and the Americans”.

Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb said in late February that a “few hundred” US troops were now in Jordan to man three Patriot anti-missile batteries deployed in the kingdom in early February. Abu Ragheb, who reiterated that Jordan will not be used as a launch pad for attacks on Iraq, said the US troops will also train Jordanian soldiers on the use of the Patriot batteries. His remarks have prompted opposition parties, including the key Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, to urge the Jordanian people “not to provide these soldiers any services.”

In another development, Egyptian authorities have freed 12 people who were arrested last month for taking part in demonstrations against the looming US-led war on Iraq, police sources said in Cairo yesterday. Leading anti-globalisation activist Kamal Khalil was among the protesters released on Friday, the sources added.

Three fresh anti-war protests were held yesterday, one by students, one by journalists and one by women marking International Women’s Day. Police said nearly 2,000 students rallied in Ain Shams University, in the east of the capital, shouting: “Down, down USA,” and: “Iraq we shall not forget you.”

Some 500 journalists also gathered inside their union headquarters, to call for a peaceful settlement of the Iraq crisis, police said. And nearly 50 women staged a sit-in near the headquarters of the Arab League on the east bank of the Nile, an AFP journalist witnessed.