Mideast - AFP
Palestinian women demonstrate against US "war crimes" in Iraq
Date: Wed Apr 7,10:32 AM ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Scores of Palestinian women protested against what they called US "war crimes" in Iraq (news - web sites) as the hardline Islamic Jihad movement hailed the "new intifada" against the US-led occupation.
More than 150 women assembled outside the offices of the United Nations (news - web sites) in Gaza where they burned an American flag to protest against a US bid to quell an insurgency by Shiite militiamen in Iraq, an AFP correspondent reported.
They also handed over a letter addressed to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) in which they denounced "the grave violations perpetrated against the Iraqi people" by the US forces.
"We call on you to act to put an end to these violations and war crimes carried out against civilians," the letter added.
In a statement issued in Gaza, Islamic Jihad also condemned the "crimes and atrocious massacres by the American occupation forces against innocent Iraqi civilians."
"The movement blesses the intifada (uprising) of the Iraqi people and the resistance in Fallujah and in all the other Iraqi towns," it added, referring to the flashpoint town west of Baghdad where four Americans were brutally killed by insurgents last week.
"Arab and Muslim people support the Iraqi and Palestinian people for their popular actions against American and Zionist terrorism."
"The massacres committed in Iraq show that America has not come to install peace and democracy but to spread its hegemony, to loot and to colonise."
The larger Hamas movement also condemned in a statement the "arbitrary killings" carried out by Americans against "our Iraqi brothers".
It also called on Arab countries and Muslims to "protect the Iraqi people, and put an end to the aggressions".
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