Muslims gather at mosques for first Friday prayers since Israel-Hamas war started

In Muslim communities across the world, worshippers gathered at mosques for their first Friday prayers since Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel, igniting the ongoing war. Some imams issued fiery calls of support for the Palestinians. Others bemoaned the loss of civilian lives on both sides and appealed for peace.

Prominent imams in France and Greece, in their sermons, decried the violence that has wracked Israel and the Gaza Strip, and appealed for peace.

The imam of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Abdennour Tahraoui, bemoaned the "tragic news” emerging from a war "that has generated thousands of dead and wounded on both sides.”

"Civilians have been deliberately targeted,” he said. "It’s our duty to condemn these acts and to give witness to our solidarity toward all innocent victims.”

He also appealed for calm in France, which has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe.

Men gather as they take part in Friday prayers in Istanbul, Turkey. AFP

More than 1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza faced an Israeli deadline on Saturday to flee south, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had only just begun to retaliate for last week's Hamas rampage across southern Israel.

U.S. President Joe Biden said consultations were under way with regional governments on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as trapped Palestinians faced shortages of power, food and water amid Israeli bombing.

The situation in Gaza has reached a "a dangerous new low," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

Men pray during Friday prayers at the Islamic Centre of East Lansing in East Lansing, Michigan. AP

Israel’s military ordered hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City to evacuate Friday ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive. The directive came on the heels of what the United Nations said was a warning it received from Israel to evacuate 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza within 24 hours.

Suffering in Gaza has been rising dramatically, with Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine and the territory’s only power plant shut down for lack of fuel. The morgue at Gaza’s biggest hospital overflowed as bodies came in faster than relatives could claim them.

People listen to Imam Mohamed Elbar during a prayer in the Brooklyn borough of New York. AP

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Israel on Friday, a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The war has claimed at least 3,200 lives on both sides since Hamas launched an incursion on Oct. 7.

Agencies