TEHRAN, November 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Hundreds of thousands of Iranians protested against Israel Friday, November 21, marking the Al-Quds Day initiated by the late Ayatollah Khomeini to support the Palestinians.

The defiant demonstrators, ferried in to central Tehran by thousands of buses and private cars, chanted slogans against Israel, the United States and its ally Britain, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Effigies of U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were set ablaze on major avenues around Tehran University.

"Death to Israel, Death to Britain, Death to America," chanted the protesters, some of them wearing the black-and-white keffiyeh chequered headscarf of the Palestinians.

"We want to make Israel understand that the Palestinians are not alone," one student, giving her name as Zohreh, told AFP.

Several top Iranian officials, including President Mohammad Khatami, parliament speaker Mehdi Karubi and judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi, took part in the demonstration.

Observers saw the attendance of many government officials as sending a clear message that the demonstrations are “rather a challenge to the United States and its main ally,” said al-Jazeera.

The protests came as the United States accused Iran of trying to make nuclear weapons in harsh comments at a key U.N. atomic agency meeting.

Washington has upped its bellicose rhetoric against Tehran on allegations of flaring up the restive situation in neighboring Iraq and developing nuclear weapons, charges the Islamic republic vehemently denies.

The protests were inaugurated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic republic.

Al-Quds Day is supported by both the conservative and reformist movements in Iran.

"Israel has no future. Those who are counting on a tumor are wrong. The Islamic world must help so we are able to solve the question of Palestine," influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said.

"We are not those who say the Jews should be thrown into the sea, there are Jews who came to Israel to make homes. That is a fact. But every person living in Palestine must have a vote," he added.

Iran does not recognize Israel and advocates the creation of a single multi-faith state comprising Israel and the Palestinian territories, whose rulers would be elected not only by its inhabitants but also the five million Palestinian refugees living across the world, according to AFP.

This would give Palestinian voters a clear majority.

At the end of the demonstration, protestors read out a declaration calling on "Palestinian groups to stay united and not to submit themselves to so-called (peace) plans like the 'roadmap' and follow the course of struggle and jihad (holy war)”.

The roadmap, which envisions a Palestinian state by 2005 and requires the Palestinians to give Israel security guarantees, was unveiled by the "quartet" of the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations earlier this year.

The blueprint was unconditionally accepted by the Palestinians, while Israel said it had reservations about 15 terms of it.