RABAT, Morocco

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in the Islamic world on Sunday to protest against Israel's 10-day offensive on the West Bank and against U.S. support for the Jewish state.The biggest rally filled the main boulevards of the Moroccan capital Rabat. "The five-hour pro-Palestinian march ended in a civilised manner... First estimates put the number of protesters at least half a million," said a senior government official.

"Sharon assassin! Bush his dog!" chanted veiled women and bearded men. "God is Great... We want Jihad (holy war)."
It was the first pro-Palestinian protest allowed by the Moroccan authorities since October 2000, and took place a few hours before the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Political groups which organised the march claimed as many as a million took part.

"This is the largest protest in the Arab world... It shows that Moroccan people firmly support the Palestinian Intifada against the Zionist aggression," said Ahmed Benjelloun, head of the leftist Avant-Garde Democratic and Socialist Party (PADS).

Political leaders including Socialist Prime Minister Abderrahmane El Youssoufi and other government members took part. Many marchers brandished Palestinian flags and images of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Thousands of demonstrators, many of them Palestinian, marched throughout Lebanon. In the centre of Beirut, around 3,000 supporters of the militant group Hamas gathered in front of a United Nations regional headquarters.

They chanted slogans demanding that Israel's neighbours let exiled Palestinian groups attack the Jewish state across their borders and accusing Egypt and Jordan of treason for maintaining diplomatic ties with Israel.

Children wore outfits emulating the suicide bombers of Hamas who have mounted dozens of attacks against Israeli civilians.

A similar demonstration organised by pro-Syrian Lebanese groups took place in the country's second city Tripoli. Around 3,000 supporters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation marched in Tyre to the south.

The Lebanese government said it would not tolerate attacks on Israeli targets from its territory and arrested several Palestinians who allegedly fired rockets over the border at Israeli positions last week. Hizbollah guerrillas attacked Israeli troops in a disputed border area on Sunday.


"DEATH TO AMERICA"

In Bahrain, thousands of people chanting "Death to America, Death to Israel" joined a funeral procession for a 24-year-old Bahraini who died of injuries sustained during a violent pro-Palestinian rally at the U.S. embassy on Friday.

"We call on the government to kick out the American ambassador," Abdul-Amir al-Jamri, an influential Shi'ite Muslim cleric told mourners setting off from the capital Manama to the village of the dead man, Mohammed Jumaa Ahmed.

Women in black wept as youths carrying the coffin chanted: "There is no God but God, the U.S. is the enemy of God."
Two days ago thousands of protesters hurled petrol bombs and stones at the U.S. mission in Bahrain -- home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet -- to demonstrate against the Israeli onslaught in the West Bank.

Many Bahrainis were enraged on Wednesday when U.S. envoy Ronald Neumann asked a school gathering to observe a minute of silence for Israelis killed by Palestinians after a student asked the group to pay tribute to Palestinians killed by Israel.

A leading Bahraini newspaper demanded a public apology from the ambassador for "insulting" Bahrainis.

Between 3,000 and 5,000 Indonesians, mostly from the Muslim-oriented Justice Party, defied scorching heat to gather near the presidential palace in central Jakarta and burnt an effigy of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

On Friday, Indonesian police turned water cannon on hundreds of protesters who tried to approach the U.S. embassy. Around 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million population are Muslim.

About 10,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets of Brussels. Some hurled stones at the U.S. embassy, but the march from Brussels' commercial district to the European Union institutions' quarter was mostly peaceful.

Many marchers demanded that the EU do more to force Israel to comply with the United Nations resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories, such as imposing sanctions


[photo image: Demonstrations in the Arab World, April 200