Muslims across the world have observed Friday as a day of
protest against the United States' decision to recognise Jerusalem as
Israel's capital, defying the UN resolutions against the move and stepping back from the two-state solution of the conflict.
Marches
were staged in Pakistan, AJK, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan,
India-held Kashmir, Jordan, Tunisia, Somalia, Yemen, and Indonesia.
Protest demonstrations were also held in Japan and other parts of the
world.
Trump's decision puts him at odds with the international
community, which insists the issue can only be resolved through
negotiations. Trump's dramatic policy shift, announced on Wednesday, has
triggered widespread international condemnation, including from US
allies. Several European leaders have warned the US shift could further
destabilise the region.
French President Emmanuel Macron
said after a meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri that he
was “launching an appeal for calm and responsibility.” Hariri said the
US decision “will further complicate the peace process and pose an
additional challenge to the stability of the whole region.”
Protests erupt in Palestine
Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops across the West
Bank and Gaza after Friday prayers to protest President Donald Trump's
recognition of contested Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
At
least one Palestinian was killed in skirmishes between protesters and
Israeli troops along the Gaza border fence, the Palestinian Health
Ministry said. Dozens more were reported wounded in clashes in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. Protesters burned Israeli and US flags or stomped
on Trump posters in displays of anger.
In the West Bank,
demonstrators torched heaps of tires, sending columns of thick black
smoke rising over the cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem. Palestinian
stone-throwers traded volleys in the streets with soldiers firing tear
gas and rubber bullets. The Israeli military reported protests at 30
locations across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and said Israeli forces
arrested six people.
Red Crescent paramedics and
Palestinian health officials reported 13 people wounded by live fire and
47 by rubber bullets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Dozens more
suffered from tear gas inhalation, medics said.
Turkey
Thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters marched after Friday
prayers in Istanbul in an angry protest at the decision of US President
Donald Trump.
Chanting slogans including “Jerusalem is
ours and will remain so!” and “down with America, down with Israel”, the
protesters marched after prayers at the Ottoman Fatih mosque in the
centre of Istanbul.
Other protests took place elsewhere
in Istanbul, Ankara and across Turkey on Friday. Some protesters threw a
placard with a picture of Trump and the slogan “servant of Zionism” to
the ground and stamped on it with their feet.
The
protesters marching from Fatih mosque converged with another group at
Sarachane park. Palestinians, Egyptians, and Syrians were among them.
Bulent
Yildirim, head of the pro-government Islamic charity Humanitarian
Relief Foundation (IHH), which helped organise the protest, condemned
Trump's declaration over Jerusalem.
“In fact we must
thank Trump. For years we couldn't tell the Islamic world about the
great Satan. With one decision, he proved that America is the great
Satan,” he said in an address.
Iran
After the Friday prayers, Iranians took to the streets of
Tehran and other cities to protest against Trump's decision, calling for
“death” to Israel and the US and burning their flags.
Ayatollah
Ahmad Khatami, an ultra-conservative and a key leader of the main
weekly Muslim prayers, said Trump had drawn a line on years of peace
efforts by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital. “Only intifadas
can turn day into a dark night for the Zionist regime,” he said.
In
his Friday sermon, Khatami warned that Iranian missiles can reach
Israel and destroy its cities.
“We build missiles and we will increase the range of our missiles as
much as we can, to thousands of kilometres, in order to deprive White
House dwellers of a good sleep,” he said. "If one day the Zionist regime
wants to make a mistake, we will level Tel Aviv and Haifa to the
ground,” he added.
Iranian state broadcaster showed
thousands of people protesting after the Friday prayers in Tehran and
other cities. Protestors chanted “death to America”, “death to Israel”
and “death to England”, and torched American and Israeli flags. They
also held up signs that read “Al-Quds (Jerusalem) is ours” and “We stand
against Israel to the end”.
President Hassan Rouhani said it was “wrong, illegitimate... and very dangerous”.
Afghanistan
More than 1,000 Afghans staged protests after Friday prayers
in Kabul to condemn the decision by US president. The protesters,
holding banners reading “death to Israel” and “death to America”, burned
effigies of Trump as well as American and Israeli flags in the centre
of Kabul.
A few dozen tried to reach the
heavily-barricaded US embassy, but were quickly pushed back by Afghan
security forces well before reaching it. In the western city of Herat,
an AFP correspondent reported some 2,500 protesters staged
demonstrations demanding Trump “reconsider his decision”.
Some 500 people also gathered in Kunduz, in the north-east of the country, according to an AFP reporter.
AJK
AJK boiled with protest rallies and demonstrations in all
major cities and towns after Friday prayers.
Protesters took to the streets in AJK's capital town where participants
of a mammoth protest rally denounced Trump's actions. Similar displays
were seen in other AJK cities including the divisional headquarters of
Mirpur and Rawalakot.
In Mirpur, various processions were
taken out by the people belonging to all walks of life, from various
city mosques after Friday prayer, on the call of Diffa-i-Pakistan
Council.
All the processions turned into a mammoth
protest rally at Shaheed Chawk where speakers belonging to various
political, religious and public representative organisations strongly
condemned the US for deciding to relocate its embassy to occupied
Jerusalem.
India-held Kashmir
Hundreds of Muslims have protested in India-held Kashmir
against the Trump administration's recognition this week of Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel.
The protesters marched at several
places in the main city of Srinagar and other parts of the region after
Friday prayers. They chanted slogans such as “Down with America” and
“Down with Israel.” In some places, the demonstrators also burned the US
and Israeli flags.
Authorities imposed a curfew in parts
of Srinagar and banned Friday prayers at the city's main mosque,
fearing the protests could morph into violent action against Indian
rule.
Kashmiri leaders have called Trump's move
“anti-Muslim.” Kashmiris have shown solidarity with Palestine in the
past and there have been violent protests in Kashmir during previous
conflicts between Israel and Palestine.
Pakistan
Hundreds of Muslims across Pakistan also rallied against
Trump's decision. Friday's rallied were organised by Islamic groups in
Islamabad and elsewhere in the country, where protesters torched
effigies of Trump to express solidarity with the Palestinians.
Rallies
took place in the port city of Karachi, and also in Multan and Lahore.
Leaders addressed the crowds and urged Muslim countries to cut
diplomatic ties with Washington to pressure Trump to reconsider his
decision.
Pakistan's foreign ministry issued a statement
expressing concern over what is said was Trump's altering of “legal and
historical status” of Jerusalem.
Egypt
Hundreds of Egyptians protested the US decision to recognise
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy to the
contested city.
The protests, reported by state-run TV,
are took place at the famous Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo following Friday
prayers amid tightened security. The protesters chanted “down with
Israel” and “we sacrifice our blood and souls for Palestine.”
Jordan
In the Jordanian capital of Amman, hundreds of protesters
chanted “Jerusalem is Arab” and “America is the head of the snake.”
Demonstrators stomped on a poster that showed Trump alongside a Nazi
swastika.
The march took place in the center of the
capital of Amman, following Friday mosque prayers. The demonstrators
raised posters showing Jordan's King Abdullah II and the Al Aqsa Mosque
compound in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site. They chanted,
“America is the head of the snake.”
Jordan has a special
stake in Jerusalem. Its monarch is the religious guardian of the Muslim
shrine, and the kingdom has a large Palestinian population.
Somalia
Several hundred people protested in Somalia's capital against President Donald Trump's decision.
The
protesters in Mogadishu, led by Islamic scholars, marched from a mosque
after Friday prayers to the bustling K4 junction to show solidarity
with Palestinians. They chanted anti-Israel and anti-Trump slogans.
“I
am really disappointed in this decision,” protester Shamso Aden said.
“Our sentiment is so high. We won't accept this, as we will fight to the
end.” Another protester, Amir Mohamed, says: “This is blackmailing the
Muslim community at large.”
Lebanon
Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians marched in the
streets of Beirut in protest against US President Donald Trump's
decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
More
than 5,000 people took to the streets near the Palestinian refugee camp
of Chatilla after Friday prayers and marched toward a cemetery where
hundreds of Palestinians, including commanders, are buried.
The
Chatilla refugee camp was the site of a massacre that left hundreds of
Lebanese and Palestinians dead in 1982 during Israel's invasion of
Lebanon. The massacre in Chatilla and the nearby camp of Sabra was
carried out by Lebanese Christian militiamen allied with Israel.
Carrying
Palestinian flags, the group marched from the Imam Ali mosque in
Beirut's western neighborhood of Tareeq Jadeedeh to the cemetery before
they dispersed peacefully.
Malaysia
Thousands of protesters in Malaysia demonstrated on Friday
outside the US embassy over President Donald Trump's recognition of
Jerusalem as Israel's capital, denouncing it as a “slap in the face” for
Muslims worldwide.
Some 5,000 demonstrators marched on
the US's Kuala Lumpur mission after Friday prayers in a nearby mosque,
chanting and waving banners that read “hands off Jerusalem” and “down
USA President Trump”.
The protesters in Kuala Lumpur were
led by Khairy Jamaluddin, the sports minister and head of ruling party
UMNO's youth wing, who accused of Trump of having made “an illegal
announcement”. “What you did is against international law — Muslims
cannot accept your action,” he said in a speech to the crowd during the
hour-long protest.
Indonesia
In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority
country, several hundred people demonstrated outside the US embassy in
the capital Jakarta, carrying placards that said “no to Trump” and
unfurling a large Palestinian flag.