BEIRUT: Thousands of people poured into the streets of cities around the world yesterday to denounce Israel’s air assault in the Gaza Strip.

Syria said it is suspending indirect peace talks with Israel, while Iran’s supreme leader urged Muslims around the world to defend Palestinians in Gaza against Israeli attacks “in any way possible.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also declared today a day of public mourning in Iran.

“All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world’s pious people are obliged to defend the defenseless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible,” Khamenei said. “Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense, is considered a martyr,” he said in a statement.

Thirty Jordanian lawmakers signed a memorandum demanding the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador over the airstrikes.

Protesters burned Israeli and US flags in a number of Arab countries and demanded a stronger response from their leaders to the Israeli attack. “Arab silence is behind the bombings,” read a banner held by one of several thousand people who turned out in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

“America and the Zionists are the leaders of world terrorism,” read a placard held by protesters at the UN headquarters in Beirut. They demanded UN intervention to end the Israeli onslaught.

Scores of protesters tried to approach the Egyptian Embassy in Beirut to demand Egypt open up its borders to Gaza. Police used tear gas to stop the demonstrators approaching.

In Egypt itself, protesters gathered in Cairo and five other towns. They burned Israeli flags and carried placards denouncing Israel.

Scuffles broke out outside the Israeli Embassy in London after more than 700 demonstrators gathered to protest. In Madrid, hundreds of Palestinians, Muslims and anti-war activists rallied outside the Israeli Embassy. Protesters waved placards that read “Israel Genocide.”

More than 1,400 people staged protests in Paris as the French government pushed for a halt to the killings.

Some 1,300 people gathered in northern Paris in the Barbes neighborhood, and 150 gathered near the landmark Arc de Triomphe, a police spokeswoman said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy held telephone talks yesterday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and condemned what he called “the provocations that led to this situation as well as the disproportionate use of force.”