JABALIYA, Gaza Strip (AFP) — Thousands marched in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Friday, torching the flags of Israel, the United States and Britain in an annual day of protest called by Iran in solidarity with Palestinians.
Demonstrators marched from the town of Beit Lahiya to Jabaliya in the north of the territory where the Islamist Hamas seized power in mid-June.
Urging on the crowd as it burned the flags, Khader Habib, an official with the radical Islamic Jihad group that organised the march, promised to continue resistance against Israeli occupation.
"Israel is a cancerous tumour that has sprouted in the region, but we will continue the jihad and the resistance until Jerusalem is liberated," he said.
Islamic Jihad is a radical group that has been responsible for most rocket strikes into Israel from Gaza over the past several years.
"Al-Quds Day" (Jerusalem in Arabic) is a day when Iran holds annual mass protest marches in solidarity with the Palestinians. It was established after the 1979 revolution when the Islamic republic was created.
In Tehran, where tens of thousands turned out for a march, chanting "Death to Israel" and burning Israeli and American flags, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched into a new tirade against the Jewish state and vowed Iran would strive to liberate "all of Palestine" from Israeli hands.
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