Related: Danish newspaper apologizes for offending Muslims

    GAZA, Feb. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Dozens of Palestinian militants on Thursday stormed into the office of the European Union in Gaza City and shut it down to protest against caricatures seen as offensive to Islam's Prophet Mohammad.

Dozens of Palestinian militants on Thursday stormed into the office of EU in Gaza City and shut it down to protest against caricatures seen as offensive to Islam's Prophet Mohammad. [Xinhua/AFP]

    The militants, members of armed wings of the mainstream Fatah movement and the Islamic Jihad (Holy War), stormed into the garden of the EU office in Remal neighborhood in Gaza City amid firing in the air.

    Muslim countries have recently called on the EU, especially Denmark, Norway and France to firmly punish the authors of a caricatures, which Muslims deem as offensive to Islam's Prophet Mohammad.

    The cartoons were published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September and republished in Norway last month and in the French paper France Soir on Wednesday.

    One of the cartoons depicts Prophet Mohammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb.

    After reading a leaflet inside the EU office, the Palestinian militants went out the office and sprayed the main door with a big blue X sign and a saying "closed down until apology to Muslims all over the world".

    "The European provocations would turn the sites of the EuropeanUnion a target for our fire," one of the militants read from theleaflet signed by the two groups.

    Warning the Norwegian, Danish and French governments, the leaflet said that "we give the three governments a 48-hour ultimatum to officially apologize to the Muslims, and if not,every citizen of these three countries would be a target for our fire."

    It said announced that the EU office in Gaza will not be reopened until an apology to all Muslims is made.

    The two groups also called on the citizens of the three countries who are staying in Gaza to leave the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, saying they are not so welcome in our country. Enditem