GAZA CITY (AFP) - Thousands of Palestinians on Friday demanded death to the United States and rallied behind their Hamas-led government, severely squeezed by a Western boycott, aid cuts and a serious fiscal crisis.

Protestors gathered in Gaza City and the West Bank town of Ramallah after the main Friday prayers to express support for the government following an appeal from a pro-Hamas group under the slogan "better hungry than humiliated".

Hamas officials whipped up the crowd, pledging not to revoke the principles of the movement, committed to armed struggle as a means to ending Israeli occupation.

Amid a sea of green flags in Gaza, more than 10,000 demonstrators shouted: "Death, death to the United States".

"They won't break our resolve. We tell those who pull the strings: Don't play with fire because our people will burn you," Hassen al-Seifi, a Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, told the crowd.

"We tell the West: We stand with our government and we won't abandon it. Our government must stand tall and not make concessions," Hamas parliament speaker Aziz al-Dweik told the rally in Ramallah.

"We renew our pledge of allegiance to (prime minister) Ismail Haniya and his government," Dweik added.

A pamphlet handed out on the sidelines of the demonstration called on Palestinians to donate money to the government, giving account numbers for four bank accounts to which the funds should be transferred.

The European Union and the United States froze hundreds of millions of dollars in direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority following Hamas's rise to power and its refusal to change its stand regarding Israel.

Unable to pay the salaries of some 160,000 state employees, officials in the new Hamas government have in recent weeks requested financial aid from several Arab and Muslim states.

But the U.S. threat to penalize banks working with the Palestinian Authority has prevented the transfer of 70 million dollars the Arab League had agreed to hand the Palestinian Authority.