Vienna - Around 6,000 protesters gathered in Vienna on Friday to protest Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to police estimates, in a demonstration largely organized by Muslim groups.

While most signs carried by demonstrators read "Stop the massacre in Gaza," some in the crowd in Vienna's city centre had placards saying: "I have a dream: A world without Israel."

"Many people must scream," said Reyep Imanz, a 24-year-old immigrant from Turkey. "Maybe Israel's president hears us and calls back his army."

Some 400,000 Muslims live in Austria, accounting for over 4 per cent of the population. Many of them have their roots in Turkey and the former Yugoslavia.

"No one questions the existence of Jews. But states have no natural right to exist," the Austrian daily Der Standard quoted Anas Schakfeh, the President of the Islamic Religious Community in Austria, in its Friday edition.

While he said that Hamas' call for wiping Israel off the map was "utopian," Syrian-born Schakfeh said the existence of states was a political question that was subject to negotiations.

Israel on Friday kept up its air raids on the seventh day of its offensive, with ground troops waiting along the border of the Gaza Strip for orders to enter.

Hamas, too, kept up its attacks, launching rockets at the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and at Sderot, just north-east of Gaza. (dpa)