CAIRO, 1 July 2006 — Thousands of worshippers protested against Israel’s overnight onslaught on the Gaza Strip after the main weekly Muslim prayers at Sunni Islam’s main seat of learning in Cairo yesterday. Demonstrators chanted slogans against the presence of an Israeli Embassy in Egypt, one of only two countries to have signed a peace agreement with the Jewish state, inside the Al-Azhar Mosque, an AFP correspondent reported.
“The first demand of the people — close the embassy and expel the ambassador,” the protesters chanted. “Palestine is Arab,” “The West is trying to crush the Palestinians’ democratic choice,” the demonstrators added in reference to Israeli moves against the government formed by Islamist movement Hamas after its upset January parliamentary election triumph.
Egypt’s opposition Muslim Brotherhood had called for an anti-Israeli demonstration outside Al-Azhar but the authorities deployed thousands of riot police in surrounding streets to prevent worshippers from taking part. Under Egypt’s quarter-century-old state of emergency, public protests are illegal although they are generally tolerated on university campuses and in the precincts of places of worship.
Several small demonstrations were held in other parts of the Arab world. But the weekly Friday prayers at mosques did not see a massive outpouring of anger over the Israeli assault in Gaza, sparked by the abduction of an Israeli soldier by Hamas-linked militants. Governments, particularly Egypt’s, appeared eager not to inflame sentiments.
Al-Azhar mosque, the most prominent institution in the Sunni Arab world, was packed with more than 3,000 worshippers obviously there for the pro-Palestinian protest after prayers — but the government-appointed cleric conspicuously avoided the topic in his sermon.
A 3-meter-long (15 feet) banner was hung in the 1,000-year-old mosque, proclaiming, “With our blood we protect you, Al-Aqsa,” referring to the main Islamic shrine in Jerusalem. The crowd largely remained inside the mosque’s courtyard and did not attempt to march outside, where the large security force was gathered.
In his prayer sermon, Lebanon’s most senior Shiite leader denounced “the war to annihilate the Palestinian people ... by the malicious, racist Jewish army.” Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told some 5,000 worshippers at a mosque in southern Beirut that Arabs and Muslims must support “the Palestinian people who are strongly standing fast against western racism that is backing Jewish racism.”
Some 100 Palestinians staged a sit-in outside the UN building in downtown Beirut to protest the Israeli invasion into Gaza and demanded world action to protect the Palestinians. In Jordan, some 400 Palestinian worshippers marched in the streets of Baqaa refugee camp on the outskirts of Amman.
Thousands of angry Turks burned Israeli flags and chanted pro-Hamas slogans in Ankara and other cities. Hundreds of women, many wearing black chadors or Islamic-style head scarves, carried Palestinian flags and yelled, “Murderer Israel, get out of Palestine!”
As protesters streamed out of the Beyazid Mosque after prayers and began to fill the square, police said they estimated 5,000 people had shown up. The protest took place in a large courtyard between the Beyazid Mosque and the giant gate to Istanbul University. Female university students walking through the gate wearing shorts and tank tops created an odd juxtaposition with the women protesters, most of whom were covered head to toe.
“This crazy adventure will light more than one big fire instead of containing a small issue over the abduction of the Israeli soldier,” read an editorial in Egypt’s state-owned Al-Ahram daily.
“The government of (Israeli premier) Ehud Olmert insists on treading further than (his predecessor) Ariel Sharon, the symbol of Israeli heavy-handedness, because it is ready to fight its war against the Palestinians on other lands, Syria and Lebanon,” Al-Ahram said.
Egypt’s state-owned Al-Gomhuria slammed Israel’s detention of Hamas ministers and MPs as “proof that it is a state which (operates) outside the law ...” “The Israeli phenomenon has truly become a symbol of shame for the international community,” it said in an editorial.
