WORLD> Middle East
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WORLD> Middle East
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Thousands across Middle East protest Gaza attack
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-05 19:20 On Sunday, the leaders of Egypt and Jordan - the only two Mideast Arab countries to sign a peace agreement with Israel and maintain diplomatic ties - condemned the ground offensive and called for an end to Israel's onslaught in Gaza. Several hundred Jordanians shouting "death to Israel" protested against the Gaza offensive Sunday in two separate demonstrations in central Amman, the Jordanian capital. The protests were peaceful and police made no arrests.
"All options are available to assess the relationship with every side, especially Israel," Prime Minister Nader al-Dahabi told parliament during a heated debate. "We will reconsider relations according to our higher national interests," he said. "We will not remain silent about the situation and the serious deterioration in Gaza and neither about the threat which risks the security of the whole area and its stability." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who runs his own Palestinian administration from the West Bank, also denounced Israel's ground offensive as "brutal aggression" in his harshest words yet in describing Israel's assault on his Hamas rivals. Israel says the aim of the operation is to stop the Palestinian militant Hamas group from firing rockets at southern Israeli towns. Hamas is opposed to any peace settlement with Israel and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. "This battle will end a (peace) settlement forever," Hamas' representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, told the protesters at the sit-in. "This battle will show who are the men." Five civilians and one policeman were lightly injured in the clash outside the US Embassy earlier in the day, according to the Lebanese officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Meanwhile, the leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, discussed the situation in Gaza with visiting chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, the group's Al-Manar TV said. Al-Manar did not give further details but said Nasrallah and Jalili, who arrived here Saturday from neighboring Syria, discussed "ways of ending this aggression."
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