Thousands of people demonstrate this Friday in Baghdad in support of the Palestinians and against the Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip, after the Hamas attack on Israel on Saturday, according to images from Iraqi state television.
“No to the occupation! No to the United States!” protesters shouted in Tahrir Square, in the heart of the Iraqi capital.
Gathered at the request of Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, in support of Gaza and against Israel, protesters waved Palestinian and Iraqi flags while a huge Israeli flag was placed on the ground for protesters to step on, according to an AFP news agency photographer. . .
“This demonstration aims to denounce what is happening in occupied Palestine, the bloodshed and the violation of rights,” Abou Kayan, an organizer and member of the movement led by Sadr, told AFP.
Around Tahrir Square, Moqtada Sadr’s movement has imposed strict security measures. A large number of Iraqi security forces were deployed in the demonstration area.
Moqtada Sadr is an opponent of the Iraqi government, but the Gaza support movement benefits from explicit support from the Iraqi government. The defense of the Palestinian cause has a broad consensus in Iraq, a predominantly Arab and Muslim country.
The Iraqi Government, supported by a parliamentary majority of parties close to Iran, an ally of Hamas, considered that the attack launched on Saturday against Israel by the Palestinian Islamist movement was the “natural result of the systematic oppression” to which the Palestinians are subjected. “by the authority of the Zionist occupation.”
Israel has concentrated forces near the Gaza Strip in a sign of a possible ground offensive, after bombing territory controlled by the Islamist group Hamas in recent days.
The escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was sparked by Hamas’ unprecedented incursion into Israel on Saturday, killing civilians and soldiers and taking more than a hundred hostages, taken to the Gaza Strip.
Since then, the conflict has caused more than 1,300 deaths on the Israeli side and more than 1,500 on the Palestinian side.
Israeli bombings also left more than 423,000 people displaced in the Gaza Strip.
Source: TSF
