ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP) — Ten of thousands of Muslims took to the streets Friday from Jakarta to Nouakchott to demonstrate their anger at the Israeli action in Gaza, with the biggest protest taking place in neighbouring Egypt.
More than 50,000 Egyptians rallied after Friday prayers to condemn the assault against Hamas as protests, sometimes violent, took place in other parts of the Muslim world.
Legislators affiliated with the opposition Muslim Brotherhood led the demonstration in the ancient Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, which echoed to such slogans as "Down with Israel and with every collaborator."
The anger was directed not only at the Jewish state, but at Arab regimes deemed to be complicit in the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza that has stopped refugees from getting out and humanitarian aid from getting in.
"Gaza, excuse us -- opening Rafah is not in our hands," went another slogan, referring to the Gaza-Egyptian border crossing that President Hosni Mubarak's government in Cairo is refusing to keep open permanently.
A security official put the turnout at 50,000. Riot police were seen trying to prevent the demonstration from taking place -- only to give up because of the sheer numbers of protesters.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, fights broke out between supporters of Hamas and the rival Fatah faction during a "day of wrath" protest, prompting police to intervene with tear gas and baton charges.
Some 3,000 demonstrated at the behest of Hamas in Hebron, throwing stones at Israeli soldiers who responded with rubber bullets. Several thousand meanwhile shouted "Death to Israel" in Nablus, while young Palestinians clashed with police in Jerusalem.
Thousands rallied in Doha, Abu Dhabi, Bahrein and Kuwait.
Police fired tear gas at more than 2,000 angry protesters on Friday to prevent them from approaching the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Water cannon were also used to disperse some of the protesters who had set off after Friday prayers from Kaloti mosque for the embassy, about a kilometre (less than a mile) away in western Amman.
Angry followers of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr torched US and Israeli flags in a mass rally in Baghdad on Friday in protest at the two-week-old conflict.
Thousands took to the streets of Algiers to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Clashes broke out between police and demonstrators in the city centre and in the upper districts of the seaside city. Arrests were made and there were injuries on both sides.
Kenyan police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse hundreds of Muslims who had gathered after Friday prayers in Nairobi. Close to a thousand demonstrators started chanting slogans in solidarity with the Palestinians outside the capital's Jamea mosque.
Demonstrators and riot police clashed Friday in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott as protestors called for diplomatic ties with Israel to be cut.
In Asia, thousands of people rallied Friday in southwest Pakistan, near the Afghan border, cheering support for Al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, police said.
The rally in the town of Chaman was organised by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam political party and was the biggest yet in Pakistan against the Israeli campaign in Gaza.
About 200 women protested outside the Egyptian embassy in Jakarta, brandishing posters of dead and wounded Palestinian children and urging Egypt to open its border with Gaza.
In Malaysia, Islamic groups urged a boycott of US brands such as Coca-Cola -- and a former prime minister told Malaysians working for Starbucks or McDonald's to quit -- during a protest by around 300 people outside the National Mosque in the capital Kuala Lumpur.
In Europe, there were protests involving thousands of people in many cities, including some 2,500 people in the Danish capital Copenhagen. These were just a taster for huge protests planned in European capitals for the weekend.
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