CNN –
Protests erupted across the Arab world on Friday as the Gaza war raged and an Israeli ground operation that could potentially displace millions of Palestinians loomed.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets after Islamic Friday prayers in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the West Bank to protest Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 4,127 people have died in Gaza as a result of the war so far. It was launched by Israel in retaliation for an October 7 attack on the country by Gaza’s Hamas rulers. According to Israeli authorities, 1,400 people were killed and about 200 taken hostage.
Israel’s attacks and calls for Gazans to evacuate the north of the strip have caused more than a million people to flee the area and raised concerns about the prospect of displacement of the enclave’s millions of Palestinians, most of whom are already registered as refugees from the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
These fears have been reinforced by the sensitive rhetoric of Israeli officials who claim that Gaza will never be the same after the elimination of Hamas. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was in talks with Egypt and Israel about establishing a humanitarian corridor at the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing to allow Americans and other civilians to flee Gaza.
In a sign of growing anger over Israel’s operation in Gaza, Egypt authorized its first major nationwide protest in a decade. Hundreds of protesters gathered near Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo on Friday in support of Palestinians, with demonstrations also taking place in other Egyptian cities
Some of the Cairo protesters shouted: “Where is the Arab army?” and: “Here they are, the Zionists,” referring to Egyptian riot police who pushed protesters into nearby Bab el-Louk Square and blocked access to Tahrir.
In the Lebanese capital Beirut, several hundred people took to the streets to denounce the Israeli offensive. Many waved the Palestinian and Lebanese flags, as well as the flags of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and its political ally in Lebanon, Amal. Young protesters burned the American flag, condemning Washington’s support for Israel.
Hundreds of Iraqis, mostly supporters of Iran-backed militias, staged a sit-in at Iraq’s main border crossing with Jordan on Friday. Others protested in Baghdad, not far from the fortified Green Zone where the U.S. Embassy is located.
Around 6,000 demonstrators marched in Jordan’s capital Amman in support of the people of Gaza. Some shouted slogans calling on Hamas to step up its attacks on Israel, Portal reported.
The protests signal growing anger on the Arab street and frustration among regional leaders over the war as the Palestinian death toll rises and the U.S. appears unwilling to limit Israel’s actions.
US President Joe Biden visited Israel this week and promised continued support for Israel. But he said it would be a “mistake” for Israel to try to reoccupy Gaza.
Rhetoric against Israel has been particularly strong from the governments of Jordan and Egypt, two U.S.-allied countries that border the Jewish state and were the first Arab nations to sign peace treaties with it. Amman and Cairo have raised the alarm over what they say is a plan to move Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank to Egypt and Jordan. Although Israel has not announced any such plans, both countries have warned that such a move could draw them into war.
Egypt’s parliament made this clear on Thursday when it authorized President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in an emergency session to take “necessary measures” to protect national security, secure the country’s borders and support the Palestinians.
Ayman Mohsab, undersecretary of Parliament’s Arab Affairs Committee, said Sisi had been authorized to take actions “even if they include waging war.”
Egypt’s constitution stipulates that the president must seek parliament’s approval before declaring war.
Sisi has suggested that Israel’s calls for the evacuation of more than a million people from the northern Gaza Strip could be part of a larger plan to liberate the entire area from Palestinians.
“The expulsion or expulsion of Palestinians from the (Gaza) Strip to Egypt simply means that a similar situation will also take place – namely the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan,” Sisi said, adding that these make no sense There will be discussion about a Palestinian state because “the land will be there, but the people won’t.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that any attempt to expel Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan would be viewed as a “declaration of war.”
Israel captured both the West Bank and Gaza, home to millions of Palestinians, in the 1967 war and began settling Jews there. It withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but continues to blockade the area. However, the West Bank remains occupied and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s previous right-wing government said it would move forward with plans to expand its jurisdiction into the West Bank. Netanyahu formed an emergency government on October 11 with National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz.
The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Egypt has resisted pressure to act. The Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday criticized Western media for “targeting Egypt, promoting the (Gaza) displacement scenario and blaming it (Egypt) for the closure of the Rafah border crossing” between Egypt and Israel.
Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority canceled a planned summit on the Gaza war with US President Joe Biden on Wednesday, less than 24 hours before it was scheduled to take place.
Instead, according to state media, Egypt has organized its own peace summit in Cairo, scheduled to take place on Saturday, with several countries taking part, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Italy and Greece, as well as the Palestinian Authority and the Secretary General of the United Nations.
The United States, Egypt and Israel agreed to let in humanitarian aid, initially 20 of the 200 trucks that have been waiting for days at the Rafah border crossing to enter Gaza. However, aid is still waiting to enter the country and multiple sources told CNN that the border crossing is not expected to open on Friday.
Egyptian television on Friday showed live footage of demonstrations in several cities in support of Gaza and in protest against the possible displacement of its people.
The protests followed a warning from Sisi on Wednesday that he could mobilize Egypt’s entire population of 105 million people to take to the streets in support of his position on the Palestinian issue.
“If it comes to the point where I call on the Egyptian people to take to the streets and express their rejection of this idea, then you will see millions of Egyptians,” he said during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Protests are rare in Sisi’s Egypt, where strict restrictions on demonstrations have been in place since he toppled a democratically elected government in a military coup in 2013. There have been no large-scale protests in Egypt since 2013, with the exception of rare and isolated demonstrations in September 2019 that led to a massive crackdown and hundreds of arrests.