Al Quds Day: Thousands hold pro-Palestinian rallies across Middle East

Thousands of people have demonstrated across Iran and several Arab countries to mark Al Quds Day in support of the Palestinian cause, amid a surge in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Protesters waved on Friday Palestinian flags, chanting pro-Palestine slogans.

Al Quds Day, proposed by Iran's former supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini after the 1979 revolution, is held each year on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

As well as Tehran, rallies were held in major Iranian cities including Tabriz in the northwest, Hamedan in the west, Yazd in the centre, Bandar Abbas in the south and Abadan in the southwest, images broadcast on state television showed.

Some demonstrators raised banners that read "Palestine is the axis of unity of the Muslim world".

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'Jerusalem, we are coming'

Similar rallies took place in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, in Lebanon's capital Beirut and the city of Baalbek, as well as in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.

In Baghdad, where pro-Tehran parties are in power, a few hundred people marched.

In Syria, Palestinians marched through the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, waving Palestinian flags.

"Jerusalem, we are coming," they chanted.

In Lebanon, Palestinian factions paraded through the Burj al Barajneh refugee camp.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed it to its capital. The Palestinians see the occupied east Jerusalem as their future capital.

Jerusalem is the home of the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam.

The compound, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, is also the most sacred site in Judaism.

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