TENS of thousands of Palestinians across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip protested against the cartoons, putting aside their religious, political and factional differences.

The demonstrations were largely peaceful but varied in mood. Hamas preachers urged calm, but others issued dire threats against the offending countries. “We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible,” a preacher told 9,000 worshippers at al-Omari Mosque in Gaza.

Thousands of men, women and children converged on the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza, waving green Hamas and yellow Fatah banners from the roof as the crowd burnt Danish flags and chanted the credo: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet.”

Yet the mood was relatively quiet after days of threats against European Union buildings and churches. Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman, told the crowd that, no matter how great their anger, Muslims should not disgrace their religion while the eyes of the world were upon it.

“The rule of God is coming again and God is preparing the climate,” he said. “What freedom of speech are they talking about when they insult the Prophet Muhammad?” he said.

“But we will deal with these people with tolerance — the Prophet’s message was merciful and we will not return abuse with an abuse.”

Khaled Mashal, the Damascus-based head of Hamas, sounded a less conciliatory tone toward Europe itself: “Hurry up and apologise to our [Muslim] nation, because you will regret not doing so. Today you are fighting with the soldiers of God,” he said.

The restraint was in contrast to the threats 24 hours before by masked Islamic Jihad and Fatah gunmen that they would attack churches and EU headquarters.

In Nablus, where gunmen briefly kidnapped a German tourist on Thursday, Hassan Sharaf, an imam, told his congregation: “If they want a war of religions, we are ready.”

Most protesters rejected Western arguments about freedom of speech, echoing a theme voiced by Nafez Azzam, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza: that the West was hypocritical by stifling debate on the Holocaust while allowing insults to Muslims.

“I don’t want to take a position on the Holocaust, but in Europe whoever speaks against the Holocaust is incriminated,” Mr Azzam told The Times. “Why only use the flag of freedom of speech to continue insulting our religion, our holy places and our holy symbols?”

Hamas appeared to have realised the damage to its image were Gaza to slide into chaos during an interregnum between the outgoing Fatah administration and a Hamas-led government. On Thursday Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas’s senior leader in Gaza, visited a priest to assure him that its 3,000 Christians would be safe.

Father Manuel Musallam said yesterday that he was satisfied, disclosing that Mr Azzam and al-Aqsa Brigade leaders had offered assurances.

Urging Europe not to damage the work of Arab Christians in building bridges, Father Musallam pointed out that all Arabs revered the Prophet. “Even if we don’t believe in Muhammad and the Koran . . . Muhammad is a high Arab personality. He is our leader, the institutor of our civilisation,” he said.

“We believe in the faith of Rome and the Occident, but we are Arabs, we are from the Orient, so we have this mission to make dialogue with the world outside.”

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