While the leaders of Jordan and Egypt are warning against transferring Palestinians to their countries, tens of thousands of people demonstrated across the Middle East on Friday in support of the Palestinians.
In Jordan, Israel's neighbor that has made peace with Israel, more than 10,000 people gathered in central Amman, near the Hussein Grand Mosque, at the call of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and several leftist and youth groups. On Friday morning, vehicles in convoy tried to get closer to the border with Israel, only to be deterred by security forces. More than half of the Hashemite kingdom, which is populated by Palestinians, refugees from previous Arab-Israeli wars, fears a new exodus of Palestinians if the situation in the occupied West Bank deteriorates severely. "The crisis should not spread to neighbouring countries and aggravate the refugee issue," warned King Abdullah II, who received US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken on Friday. The monarch warned against "any attempt to displace Palestinians from all Palestinian lands or to provoke their displacement," according to a statement from the royal palace.
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In Baghdad, tens of thousands of Iraqis gathered in Tahrir Square to chant "No to occupation! No to America!" Gathered at the call of Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr and waving Palestinian and Iraqi flags, they trampled and burned Israeli pennants.
'Down with America'
In Egypt, videos on social media showed hundreds of protesters chanting solidarity with Gaza at the al-Azhar mosque. "Arab and Muslim countries have a duty and responsibility to urgently provide humanitarian aid and relief to Palestinians in Gaza," said al-Azhar University, the highest institution of Sunni Islam.
In Beirut, more than 1,000 people expressed solidarity with the Palestinians at a demonstration in the southern suburbs of the capital, a stronghold of Iran's ally Hezbollah.
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In Tehran and several other cities across Iran, demonstrators waved Iranian, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, holding banners that read "Down with America" and "Down with Israel." There were also a thousand of them who took to the streets in Algiers.
In Saudi Arabia, where demonstrations are banned, an AFP journalist saw a police officer handcuff a worshipper who had interrupted Friday prayers by shouting at the imam: "Talk about Palestine! Gaza is under bombs!" This place "is not made for politics," the imam told him before the man was arrested. It was a radically different scene at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, where social media reported a sermon by the imam calling for "the liberation of the al-Aqsa mosque" in Jerusalem. This is proof that the rapprochement with Israel, initiated in recent months by Riyadh, is having difficulty getting over the place among some Saudis, who are attached to the Palestinian cause.