Thousands in Turkey gather to condemn Israel

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

During the demonstrations over the weekend, Turks in several cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, staged protests condemning Israel. The Welfare Party, or SP, held a demonstration in Istanbul. Police refused to give the exact number of demonstrators that filled the sprawling Çağlayan square under drizzling rain, but organizers said there were as many as 700,000 people in the 180,000 square meter venue.

Waving Turkish and Palestinian flags, the protesters chanted "Damn Israel" and "Allahu Akbar" (God is great), as they burned Israeli flags, an AFP correspondent said. "Stop the massacre, Palestine is dying," read a banner brandished by protesters, many of who wore headbands with the inscription "We are all Palestinians."

Meanwhile, protests in the central Anatolian city of Kayseri crossed the line on Saturday when an NGO representative identified Israelis working in the city as targets, the Doğan News Agency reported.

Ahmet Taş, the president of the local branch of the Organization of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People, or Mazlum-Der, draw criticism from demonstrators after he announced the hotel Israelis who were working in a joint construction project were staying at. The crowd booed Taş, who continued his speech by calling for a boycott on Israeli products. "I call on the Turkish people not to buy any product made in Israel and its partner in slaughter, the United States. Let us not forget that every penny we pay to them comes back to Palestinian babies as bullets," he said. Demonstrators burned an Israeli flag and carried a picture of U.S. President Bush with a shoe hanging over it during the protests.

There were smaller demonstrations overnight in Istanbul and Ankara hours after Israeli tanks and ground troops moved in Gaza on Saturday.

On Saturday, some 750 people carrying Turkish and Israeli flags marched to the Israeli consulate in the business district of Levent, on Istanbul's European side, under the watchful eye of riot police, CNN Türk news channel said on its Web site. "Shut down the Zionist embassy, Palestine is not alone," chanted the protesters, who also burned an Israeli flag. Some of the protesters were detained when they tried to scale the fence around the building, the NTV news channel said.

Also in Istanbul, more that 2,000 people attended a demonstration held by Sultanbeyli nongovernmental organizations. Ali Yalçın, a representative of the Education Personnel Labor Union, or Eğitim-Bir-Sen, called on the government to withdraw Turkey’s ambassador to Israel and to deport the Israeli ambassador to Ankara.

In Ankara, protesters from a minor nationalist group gathered outside the U.N. mission, shouting "Damn Israel" and throwing snowballs at the building. The group then went to the Israeli embassy, where they recited passages from the Koran to commemorate Palestinians killed in Israel's offensive, before dispersing. Another group, who gathered in the Abdi İpekçi Park, prayed in the Kocatepe mosque for the people who had lost their lives in Gaza.

In Diyarbakır, more that 1,000 people gathered in front of the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, headquarters to protest the attacks. DTP deputies Aysel Tuğluk, Gültan Kışanak and Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir also attended the demonstration. Several demonstrations were also held in Turkey’s Black Sea region, in Samsun, Ordu, Sinop and Çorum.