Friday prayers call for Hezbollah victory
CAIRO: Thousands of people at Cairo s Al-Azhar mosque prayed Friday for a victory of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah against Israel.
God give victory to Hezbollah, and inflict defeat on the Jews, hammered Sheikh Eid Abdelhamid, the Al-Azhar cleric who delivered the Friday sermon to the faithful gathered inside the mosque. In reaction to the devastating three-week-old onslaught launched by Israel against Lebanon following the capture of two its soldiers by Hezbollah, the cleric called for Muslim unity. Around 2,000 worshippers, some of them carrying pictures of Hezbollah s cleader Hassan Nasrallah, tried to start a demonstration but were not allowed out of the mosque compound by a heavy security contingent. Nasrallah, Nasrallah, the whole of Egypt is Hezbollah, chanted the worshippers, who burnt an Israeli flag in the courtyard. A child sitting on his father s shoulder was seen brandishing plastic guns in the air while another was holding aloft a doll wrapped in a shroud to symbolize the civilian victims of Israel s raids on Lebanon.
Lebanese officials say more than 900 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the July 12 start of the offensive which plunged the region into a deep crisis and provoked outrage in the Muslim world. Some Sunni radicals have cited an old fatwa by hardline Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdullah bin Jebreen banning support to the Shiite Hezbollah, but Muslims have largely rallied behind the group. Led by the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt s opposition groups have been very critical of President Hosni Mubarak for criticizing Hezbollah s adventurism and refusing to express his support for the militia. On Thursday, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef said he was ready to send 10,000 fighters to Lebanon to fight alongside Hezbollah, but admitted that the chances were slim that any volunteers would ever reach Lebanon. AFP
