Gaza marches over Jerusalem plans

Central Gaza City was jammed with schoolchildren and university students waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans, who marched alongside leaders of the Hamas administration and other factions of the Palestinian resistance.

The rally took place as scores of Arab residents of east Jerusalem were injured in clashes with Israeli riot police.

Gaza's democratically elected islamist Hamas administration called for a "day of rage" on Monday in response to the restoration of the Hurva synagogue in the Arab quarter of the city and plans to build 1,600 new homes for Israeli settlers there.

Ahmed Bahar, deputy speaker of Gaza's parliament, addressed the crowds outside the destroyed parliament building in the city.

Mr Bahar called for armed attacks against Israel to be stepped up.

He urged Arab states "to shoulder their responsibilities and send their warplanes and armies to rescue the al-Aqsa Mosque and end the Judaisation of Jerusalem."

The Hamas official complained that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was preventing "holy warriors" from attacking Israel and liberating Jerusalem.

Gaza's minister of religious affairs Taleb Abu Sha'ar called on Palestinians and Arabs across the Middle East to rise up in defence of the city and its holy sites.

Mr Sha'ar called on Palestinian resistance factions to target "the heart of Israel" in response to what he branded Tel Aviv's "disrespect" for Muslim and Christian holy sites.

Top Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Rabah Muhana urged Palestinians "to escalate armed resistance against the Israeli measures in the old city and against the expansion of Jewish settlements."

The PLO, which controls the West Bank, predicted on Tuesday that Israeli construction in east Jerusalem "will not only affect the security and stability in Israel and the Palestinians, but also in the region and the rest of the world."

The West Bank administration accused Israel "of trying to drag the whole world into a religious war by reopening the Hurva synagogue just a few hundred metres from the al-Aqsa Mosque."

In Israel MP Taleb el-Sanaa warned that the "dangerous and irresponsible Netanyahu government is leading the area to a third intifada."

Mr Sanaa, the longest serving Arab member of the Knesset, called on the Arab League to prioritise the Jerusalem issue, saying that the city "is the key to peace and the key to war."