Chanting crowds protested across the Middle East Friday in a show of solidarity with the Palestinians, with Iran's ex-president saying Israel's harsh actions against the Palestinians can only lead to more violence like the dual attacks on Israelis in Kenya. From Iran to Nigeria, tens of thousands of people marked the annual protest for Jerusalem Day with calls for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to be tried as a war criminal and America to be punished for its support of Israel.

Former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani delivered a Friday prayers speech, saying the West remained indifferent to the suffering of Palestinians in the ongoing fighting with Israel, "despite pictures and (TV) films showing Israeli brutality."

In a warning to Israel, he said: "Don't think the war will be over if you expel Palestinians from their homes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank."

"We saw an example of that in Kenya on Thursday," Rafsanjani said, referring to the suicide bomb attack outside Mombasa on Thursday. 

Iran's current president, the reformist Mohammad Khatami, joined an estimated 10,000 people who converged on Tehran's Enqelab Square.

"Sharon is a war criminal and must be punished!" protesters shouted, while also calling for the Israeli leader to stand trial for "crimes against humanity"

Protests also were held in Cairo, the Gulf state of Bahrain, Syria's capital Damascus, Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon and northern Nigeria to mark Al-Quds Day - Al-Quds, meaning "the holy," is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.

Held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the protest day was declared by the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to celebrate Jerusalem as an Islamic city. The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

In Egypt, demonstrators focused on the current fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. Protesters at the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo called on their government to cut ties with Israel and the United States.

"We are here protesting the daily massacres against our brothers and sisters in Palestine," said Fawqiya Maher, a member of the Arab Nasserite Party.

The Cairo-based Arab League issued a statement marking the day, saying the world should force Israel to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring it to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were captured in the 1967 Arab-Israel war.

In Bahrain, about 9,000 people marched through a town outside the capital Manama behind a black truck bearing a huge painting of the Dome of the Rock, the Islamic mosque in east Jerusalem.

Many demonstrators had wrapped around their heads scarves bearing the slogan "Jerusalem is ours."

One participant, Jamil Abdullah Mohammed Sabt, who walked with crutches, cursed Americans and Israelis.

"I pray that god's wrath befall America and Israel soon. They are the enemies of Arabs and Muslims," he said.

In Damascus, some 3,000 people marched in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, walking behind posters showing Ayatollah Khomeini and Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In southern Lebanon, thousands of Hezbollah supporters turned out in heavy rain to hear Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vow ongoing support for the Palestinian uprising and resistance attacks against Israel.

"On Al-Quds Day, we affirm that our choice is clear: Resistance which will regain (Arab) rights and holy sites (in Jerusalem)," Nasrallah told the crowd in the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, speaking from a bulletproof glass podium.

In Nigeria, tens of thousands of marchers took to the streets of the northern city of Kano in an emotionally charged, but peaceful demonstration less than a week after deadly Muslim-Christian riots rocked the West African country.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Pakistani protestor poses as death shrouded in a U.S. flag during a rally on the fourth Friday of fasting month of Ramadan in Karachi November 29, 2002. Muslims throughout the country observed Al-Quds day to condemn Israel's occupation of Jerusalem, condemn U.S. support for Israel and to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. REUTERS/Zahid Husse