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16/01/2009

Mideast protests against Israel attacks on Gaza

SAMEER N. YACOUB - Associated Press Writer

Iraqi worshippers dropped money in boxes and gave up their jewelry Friday as clerics called for donations to help Palestinians suffering under an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Elsewhere in the Mideast, refugees at a Palestinian camp near Damascus called for Israel to pull out of Gaza and widows in Beirut staged a sit-in outside a U.N. building. Palestinian police in the West Bank beat up protesters chanting in support of the militant Hamas.

The protests after Friday prayers were mostly low key, although the region has seen daily rallies since Israel launched its offensive to rout out Hamas on Dec. 27.

Israel says it wants to halt rocket fire from Gaza. U.N. and Palestinian medical officials say some 1,100 Palestinians have died so far in the offensive, including 346 children.

In Hamas' ally Syria, 2,000 people rallied in the Palestinian Yarmouk camp, trampling Israeli flags and shouting anti-Israel slogans. About 1,500 worshippers marched in an upscale neighborhood of Amman condemning an Arab summit on Gaza under way in Doha and demanding Arabs send armies to Gaza rather than hold gatherings.

Amman protesters demanded the expulsion of Israel's ambassador and abolishment of Jordan's 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

In Beirut, more than 1,000 Lebanese and Palestinian women—including widows who had lost husbands to armed conflict—staged an hour's sit-in outside the U.N. relief agency building in Beirut.

Children held dolls stained with red paint, representing killed Gaza children.

Muslim clerics joined some 2,000 Lebanese and Palestinians in a peaceful march in southern Lebanese port city of Sidon.

In the northern West Bank town of Tul Karem, Palestinian police beat protesters with clubs after some chanted in support of Hamas. The police broke up the 500-strong rally, chasing protesters down streets and arresting at least one man.

The West Bank is ruled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, a group deeply hostile to Gaza's Hamas. Police have shocked West Bank residents by harshly cracking down on protests in support of Gaza—the other territory Palestinians want for a future state.

In Jerusalem, around 30 Palestinian women gathered on the steps leading to old city, chanting against Israel's operation. Scores of blue-uniformed policemen with batons, Israeli special forces in black uniforms clutching assault rifles and khaki-uniformed soldiers stood nearby.

One of the women held up a Quran as others sung: "We kiss the ground under your shoes," referring to Gazans. Police arrested at least two men standing nearby.

Iraq's worshippers answered clerics' calls for donations—the first such call in the embattled country, where many have been sympathetic to the Palestinians' plight.

Dozens of Iraqi women offered jewelry and children brought in money, while people also donated rice and sugar at a local office in the southern city of Basra. Protesters also took to the streets after Friday prayer services in Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish areas.

Protesters burned an Israeli flag, chanting "No, no to America! No, No to Israel!" in Baghdad's main Sadrist stronghold of Sadr City. Palestinian flags were hoisted on buildings in the Shiite southern cities of Najaf and Amarah.

Associated Press Writers Ali Daraghmeh in Nablus, Karen Zolka in Jerusalem, Hussein Dakroub in Lebanon and Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.

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