Thousands of Iraqis, including many of his followers Moctada Sandr, responded to the call of the Shiite leader and demonstrated on Saturday at Baghdad and other pro-Palestinian Iraqi cities amid Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Since Monday, Israel has been bombing the Palestinian enclave controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas, which has been firing rockets at the Jewish state in retaliation for the violent crackdown on Palestinian protesters in East Jerusalem.
These clashes are linked to bloody riots in the occupied West Bank between the Palestinians and the Israeli army.
They gathered in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad under a huge Palestinian banner, protesters holding Palestinian and Iraqi flags, and photographs of Moqtada al-Sadr.
“Jerusalem is ours, death to Israel”, “The world is against Palestine, but God supports it”, were the slogans on the banners.
“We are with the Palestinians for better or for worse,” Moqtada al-Sadr was quoted as saying by Sheikh Ibrahim al-Jabbari, a spokesman for Baghdad.
“Israel is trying in every way to reconcile with the Arabs and the Muslims by normalizing its relations with some states guided only by their economic and financial interests, but the Palestinians will never bow their heads, only before God,” he said. referring to several Arab countries that normalized their relations with Israel at the end of 2020.
In front of the protesters shouting “Long live Moqtada al-Sadr”, the spokesman said: “There is no difference between Sunnis and Shiites in the confrontation against Zionism. “Palestinians, Iraq is with you.”
Demonstrations also took place in several southern Shiite areas, including Basra, Nasiriyah and Divaniya.
In addition to defending the Palestinian cause, experts say, the demonstration was a show of strength by Sadr supporters in the run-up to the early general elections scheduled for October 10.
Two days ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kazimi also condemned “the cowardly Israeli attack on unarmed Palestinians in Jerusalem and Gaza.”
Since the start on Monday of a new round of violence between the Jewish state and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip, nearly 150 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians in the Palestinian enclave.
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