Palestinians rally in support of Iraq

10 Apr, 2004

Some 3,000 Palestinians took to the streets of the Palestinian territories Friday in a show of solidarity with the intensifying anti-US insurgency in Iraq.
In Gaza City, more than 2,000 Palestinians, including masked gunmen, participated in a rally against the US-led occupation, called by the Islamic Jihad.
"Death to Israel, death to America," chanted the angry crowd.
They burned effigies of US President George W. Bush and of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"Arabs must rise to support Palestinians and Iraqis. As for Arab governments, we do not expect anything of them," said one of Islamic Jihad's political chiefs, Mohammed al-Hindi.
"We want to show the Iraqi people and the whole world today that we are fighting the same battle. Our people's throats is being cut by Sharon's knife and Iraqis are being slaughtered by Bush's knife."
In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, some 400 Palestinians commemorated the first anniversary of Baghdad's fall to US-led troops, waving banners reading: "Baghdad and Jerusalem - resistance is the only alternative", and: "Bush and Sharon are the godfathers of terrorism."
The demonstrators, who marched after the main weekly Muslim prayers, set US and Israeli flags ablaze as a large Iraqi flag flew overhead.

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