Rallies held across Arab world in support of Gaza

Cairo – Demonstrations in support of Gaza and condemning Israel’s bombardment of the besieged enclave were held across the Arab world on Friday, including in countries which have normalised relations with Israel.

In Egypt, where public gatherings were banned after the military seized power in 2013, tens of thousands took to the streets of Cairo and other cities as authorities sought to manage the wave of public anger.

The protests came on day 14 of Israel’s retaliation for a shock Hamas attack, the deadliest in Israel’s 75-year history.

Hamas militants killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death during the October 7 attack, according to Israeli officials.

More than 4,100 Palestinians have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardment of Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

In Cairo, several thousand people packed into Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak, an AFP correspondent reported.

“The people want the fall of Israel,” the demonstrators chanted, adapting the Arab Spring catchphrase: “The people want the fall of the regime.”

Public protests are generally illegal in Egypt but on Wednesday President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz he could “call on the Egyptian people to come out and express their rejection” of Israeli actions in Gaza “and you would see millions of Egyptians” in the street.

Later the same day, thousands took to the streets.

“There is a desire to take control of the public anger,” Cairo University politics professor Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid told AFP. 

Media loyal to the president had published a list of public squares and other sites where protests would be tolerated, calling on Egyptians to show their support for Sisi ahead of a presidential election due in December. 

Cairo’s Tahrir Square was not among them, a matter of pride for many of those demonstrating on Friday.

“We’re not here to give a new mandate to anybody. It’s a genuine demonstration,” the crowd chanted.

Police later pushed protesters away from the square to nearby streets, the AFP correspondent reported.

Police made 26 arrests in Tahrir Square and 17 in nearby Abdeen, human rights lawyer Khaled Ali said on Facebook.

– ‘No to normalisation’ –

In the Gulf state of Bahrain, which normalised relations with Israel in the Abraham Accords of 2020, some 2,000 worshippers at the Duraz mosque chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” at Friday prayers. 

Around 1,000 people joined a march afterwards, shouting anti-Israel slogans including “No to normalisation!”

“We want normalisation to end and the Israeli ambassador expelled,” said one marcher, holding her baby in her arms.

In Baghdad, a few thousand people demonstrated on Friday, including sympathisers of the Hashed al-Shaabi, a coalition of armed factions close to Israel’s arch foe Iran.

The demonstrators gathered at a bridge leading to the Green Zone, the fortified government and diplomatic compound where the US embassy is based.

“We support the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupier,” Ali Hussein, a 45-year-old taxi driver, told AFP.

Other Hashed supporters held a sit-in at Iraq’s Trebil border crossing with Jordan, the organisers and Iraqi officials said.

Demonstrators vowed to keep up their protest “until the roads are opened to send aid” to Gaza.

Images on social media which AFP was unable to independently verify showed several tents pitched near the crossing beneath Iraqi and Palestinian flags.

In Tunisia, thousands gathered outside the French embassy to protest Western support for Israel, AFP correspondents reported.

“The French and the Americans are partners in the attack” against Palestinians, they chanted.

Some expressed support for Hamas, shouting “Dear (Ezzedine) al-Qassam (Brigades), destroy Tel Aviv”, in reference to the movement’s military wing.

A similar protest was held outside the US embassy in the capital’s northern suburbs, where demonstrators burnt a US flag.