Thousands rally in Amman for Gaza ceasefire

Some 5,000 Jordanians protested Friday in the capital Amman, calling on King Abdullah II to press for a ceasefire in fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, AFP correspondents said.

Speaking at the demonstration, lawmaker Yanal Fraihat said protesters wanted the king “to stop the aggression against Gaza” by using Jordan’s peace agreement with Israel as leverage.

The rally came a day ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who was to discuss the ongoing Gaza war with his Jordanian counterpart.

Israel launched an intense military campaign against Hamas after it staged a surprise Oct. 7 assault.

Waving Jordanian and Palestinian flags, protesters denounced as “shameful” the kingdom’s 1994 peace agreement with Israel, calling it an act of “surrender” that the king should nullify.

The rally outside a mosque near the Israeli Embassy in Amman took place amid a heavy presence of Jordanian security forces, the correspondents said.

Another rally with some 1,500 protesters took place outside a prominent mosque in central Amman, where demonstrators chanted slogans in support of the Palestinian “resistance” and against Arab “normalization” with Israel.

Other protests took place in several cities in Jordan’s north including Irbid and Zarqa.

Ahead of Blinken’s visit on Saturday, the office of Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said the pair would discuss “the catastrophic conditions in Gaza” and how to end Israel’s military action there.

In 1994, Jordan became the second Arab state to make peace with Israel after Egypt in 1979.

Its population includes more than 2 million Palestinian refugees.

On Wednesday, Jordan said it would “immediately” recall its ambassador to Israel to protest the war in Gaza.

In response, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said Israel “regrets the decision of the Jordanian government to recall its ambassador.”

The last time Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel was in 2019.

Since the war began, Jordan has seen several large protests in support of Gaza, with demonstrators demanding that it annul the peace treaty with Israel and close the Israeli Embassy.