Hamas Movement deputy political bureau chief Moussa Abu Marzouk called for a new intifada (uprising) on Tuesday, as thousands of people across the Gaza Strip protested against Israel's reopening of a 17th century synagogue in Jerusalem.

"The intifada must enjoy the participation of all of Palestinian society," he told Al-Jazeera television via telephone from Damascus. "Every Palestinian should rise up against the forces of the [Israeli] occupation."

Thousands of people, mostly students, took to the streets across Gaza to protest the opening of the synagogue and recent Israeli settlement expansions in East Jerusalem.

Hamas declared Tuesday a "day of rage and alarm" over the opening of the rebuilt synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City near the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

Many Palestinians fear that the synagogue, which is several hundred meters from the compound, is the first step in an Israeli plan to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Jewish Temple on its ruins.

-AFP/NOWLebanon