As the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance continue to withstand Israeli aggression, Egyptians struggle to show solidarity, reports Mohamed El-Sayed As the Israeli war on Lebanon and Gaza escalated, people from all walks of life in Egypt struggled to show their support for the two beleaguered peoples. Ever since Israel's reinvasion of Gaza last month, worshippers have frequently demonstrated peacefully at Al-Azhar Mosque, one of the holiest in Islam, following Friday prayers. Last Friday the Muslim Brotherhood, Kifaya, the Nasserist Party, the Revolutionary Socialists and the Labour Party, along with other political forces organised a demonstration, reportedly attracting 8,000 people. The mosque and indeed the neighbourhood were under siege by the Central Security Forces, state security agents, plainclothes policemen and hired thugs, according to many demonstrators. As some demonstrators tried to leave the mosque's premises, thugs attacked both them and regular worshippers with sticks and batons, trapping them inside the mosque, according to Ahmed Salah, coordinator of the Kifaya's Youth for Change movement. Security forces assaulted some of the demonstrators, and confiscated the leaflets and flags they were carrying. Demonstrators condemned Israel's aggressions, the green light granted by the United States to Israel, and chanted slogans denouncing the "pathetic stance taken by all Arab leaders". They also singled out and condemned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for censuring Hizbullah, as well as King Abdullah II of Jordan and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz. The demonstrators demanded the closure of the Israeli Embassy in Egypt and the expulsion of its ambassador from the country. Other slogans expressed solidarity with the Hizbullah and Hamas resistance against "the Zionist enemy". Protesters burnt an Israeli flag, and there were scuffled security forces, in which at least three were injured. Later on, security allowed trapped demonstrators to leave the mosque one by one. Nevertheless, around 150 demonstrators regrouped and moved towards downtown Cairo. Again riot police and hired thugs chased them until they reached the Press Syndicate. And there they began chanting against the regime and the president's son Gamal Mubarak. Also on Friday, another 3,000 people demonstrated against Israel and in solidarity with Lebanon and Palestine in Egypt's second largest city of Alexandria following the Friday prayer. The previous day, police in the eastern Delta city of Zagazig banned a rally in solidarity with the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance. On the same day, 10 Muslim Brotherhood activists were detained for writing phrases on street walls like: "Together with the resistance of Palestine and Lebanon", according to the website of the banned group. On Sunday, about 200 members of the Youth for Change held a march in downtown Cairo, but the demonstration ended before they could make it to the headquarters of the Ghad Party, where they were supposed to be joined by party members. On Monday, a conference held at the Bar Association in commemoration of the 23 July 1952 Revolution and the nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 turned into a show of solidarity with the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance. "Hassan Nasrallah, along with his few fighters, revived the Nasserist experience as they managed to hit the inside of Israel," said Diaaeddin Dawoud, head of the Nasserist Party. Participants proposed that a "popular Arab League" be formed instead of the current Arab League "that is the mouthpiece of [weak] Arab governments." On Tuesday, the Press Syndicate organised a music concert featuring Egyptian singers who praised the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance. Through recent days, the syndicate has been active in organising a series of seminars to salute Hizbullah and its leader, Sayid Hassan Nasrallah.
