BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Hundreds of supporters of Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary groups gathered on Friday at Iraq’s main border crossing with Jordan to express solidarity with Gaza and call for an end to the blockade imposed by Israel. Some 800 supporters of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of mainly Shi’ite militia, departed from Baghdad late on Thursday in buses and arrived at the Iraqi-Jordanian border crossing in the early hours of Friday in the western Anbar province, which is the closest access point from Iraq to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Amid heavy security presence at the crossing, protesters set up tents and staged a sit-in, demanding Israel lift its blockade on Gaza and allow aid to flow in. “No to Israel and normalization,” protesters chanted while waving Palestinian flags.
Israel has vowed to wipe out the Hamas Islamist group that rules Gaza, after its gunmen burst through the barrier fence surrounding the enclave on Oct. 7 and rampaged through Israeli towns and kibbutzes, killing 1,400 people, mainly civilians.
Israel has pounded Gaza with air strikes and put the enclave’s 2.3 million people under a total siege, banning shipments even of food, fuel and medical supplies.
Since Oct. 7, at least 4,137 Palestinians have been killed and 13,000 wounded in Gaza in Israeli strikes since Oct.7, the Palestinian health ministry said.
“We are going to support our people in Palestine,” said 26-year-old Hussein Samir, as he sat in a bus just before leaving Baghdad late on Thursday. “We condemn them, and we will give them a period of time; if they don’t lift the blockade, the resistance will begin, God willing, and the war against them (Israel) will begin,” he added. On Thursday influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for a peaceful sit-in at the Palestinian borders in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan until Israel lifts the blockade on the enclave and aid is delivered to people in Gaza. Sadr said protesters should only carry shrouds and not arms.
(Reporting by Amina Ismail, Kamal Ayash in Anbar, Haider kadhim in Baghdad, writing by Amina Ismail, editing by Deborah Kyvrikosaios)
