What's next after protests forced Bangladesh's prime minister to quit and flee the country?

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — What began as peaceful protests by students in Bangladesh against a quota system for government jobs eventually turned into an uprising that forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee the country by helicopter.

Now, opposition leaders and the country's military are talking about appointing an interim government that is expected to organize new elections in what critics of Hasina say is a restoration of democracy.

The end to Hasina's 15 years in power came after weeks of violent unrest during which nearly 300 people died, according to local media reports.

The government repeatedly tried to quell demonstrations they blamed on sabotage and opposition parties with bullets, curfews and internet outages, but these heavy-handed moves backfired, fueling outrage and further protests.

On Monday, protesters defied a military curfew to march into the capital's center, following a weekend of violence left dozens of people dead. As troops pulled back and internet access was restored, tens of thousands of people began to celebrate in the streets, and thousands stormed the leader's official residence.

Here’s what we know:

Shortly after Hasina resigned, the country's military chief said the army would seek the figurehead president's guidance to appoint an interim government.

President Mohammed Shahabuddin announced late Monday after meeting with Gen. Waker-uz-Zamam and opposition politicians that Parliament would be dissolved as soon as possible, leading to fresh elections.

The next day, a key student leader said that the movement wanted Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus to head the interim government.

Nahid Islam said in a video posted on social media that student protest leaders had already talked with Yunus, who consented to take over considering the present situation of the country.

Yunus faced a number of corruption accusations and was put on trial during Hasina’s rule. He received the Nobel in 2006 after he pioneered microlending, and he said the corruption charges against him were motivated by vengeance.

Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman also promised to launch an investigation into the deadly crackdowns that fueled outrage against the government.

“Keep faith in the military, we will investigate all the killings and punish the responsible,” he said. “I have ordered that no army and police will indulge in any kind of firing.”

He asked for patience as a new government is formed.

“Now, the students’ duty is to stay calm and help us,” he added.

The protests, which have drawn hundreds of thousands, began in July with students demonstrating against a controversial quota system that allocated government jobs.

It turned violent on July 15 as student protesters clashed with security officials and pro-government activists, prompting authorities to disperse tear gas, fire rubber bullets and to close schools and impose a curfew with a shoot-on-sight order. The internet and mobile data were also turned off.

The government says nearly 150 people died last month, while local media have reported that more than 200 were killed.

At first, the demonstrations were against a quota system that set aside up to 30% of government jobs for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence against Pakistan.

Protesters said the system was discriminatory and benefited supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party, which led the independence movement.

The furor highlighted the extent of economic distress in Bangladesh, where exports have fallen and foreign exchange reserves are running low. There’s a lack of quality jobs for young graduates, who increasingly seek the more stable and lucrative government jobs.

As the violence crested, the Supreme Court last month ruled that the veterans’ quota must be cut to 5%, with 93% of jobs to be allocated on merit. The remaining 2% will be set aside for members of ethnic minorities and transgender and disabled people.

The government accepted the decision, and restored the internet thinking that the situation would ease. But the protests grew, with new demands for investigations into the deadly crackdowns, and eventually for Hasina and her cabinet to step down.

Pathi reported from New Delhi.

Protesters celebrate beside a defaced portrait of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after news of her resignation, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Tuj Johora)

People cry as the dead body of a man, who was killed during the anti-government protests in Bangladesh, is brought to a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

Protesters shout slogans as they celebrate after getting the news of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

FILE- Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina delivers a speech during the Paris Peace Forum, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021. Protesters stormed Hasina’s official residence on Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, as leader’s whereabouts are unknown. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

Protesters climb a public monument as they celebrate the news of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

People shout slogans as they take part in a protest against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government demanding justice for the victims killed in the recent countrywide deadly clashes, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

People use a stretcher trolley to carry a man, who was injured during the anti-government protests in Bangladesh, to the emergency ward of a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

People use a stretcher trolley to carry a man, who was injured during the anti-government protests in Bangladesh, to the emergency ward of a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

People use a stretcher trolley to carry a man, who was injured during the anti-government protests in Bangladesh, to the emergency ward of a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

People use a stretcher trolley to carry a woman, who was injured during anti-government protests in Bangladesh, to a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

People help a man, who was injured during the anti-government protests in Bangladesh, out of a vehicle at a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

Students advocating for quota reform in public service held a mock funeral at Dhaka University in memory of those who died during clashes, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

CORRECTS LOCATION - Students clash over quota system at New market area of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, July 16, 2024. Police have fired tear gas and charged with batons overnight during violent clashes between a pro-government student body and student protesters, leaving dozens injured at a leading public university outside Bangladesh's capital over quota system in government jobs, police and students said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

Police fire tear gas shells and rubber bullets to disperse students shouting slogans in favor of quota system in public service at the university campus, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

Police fire tear gas shells and rubber bullets to disperse students shouting slogans in favor of quota system in public service at the university campus, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)

Students clash over quota system at Jahangir Nagar University at Savar outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, July 15, 2024. Police have fired tear gas and charged with batons overnight during violent clashes between a pro-government student body and student protesters, leaving dozens injured at a leading public university outside Bangladesh's capital over quota system in government jobs, police and students said Tuesday.(AP Photo/Abdul Goni)

Here's what to know about the violent protests over government jobs roiling Bangladesh

Here's what to know about the violent protests over government jobs roiling Bangladesh

Students clash over quota system at Jahangir Nagar University at Savar outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, July 15, 2024. Police have fired tear gas and charged with batons overnight during violent clashes between a pro-government student body and student protesters, leaving dozens injured at a leading public university outside Bangladesh's capital over quota system in government jobs, police and students said Tuesday.(AP Photo/Abdul Goni)

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Arms raised high. Banners denouncing the war in Gaza. Crowds united in song and wrapped in keffiyehs, the black-and-white checkered scarves that have become a badge of Palestinian identity.

It could have been any other pro-Palestinian rally erupting over the Israel-Hamas war if it weren’t for the fact that these thousands of protesters were actually soccer fans at a league match in Santiago, the capital of Chile.

Although the players darting across the field had names like José and Antonio and grew up in a Spanish-speaking South American nation, their fervor for the Palestinian cause and red, white, black and green-colored jerseys underscored how Chile's storied soccer club serves as an entry point for the world’s largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East to connect with an ancestral home thousands of miles away.

“It’s more than just a club, it takes you into the history of the Palestinians,” said Bryan Carrasco, captain of Chile's legendary Club Deportivo Palestino.

As the bloodiest war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages in the Gaza Strip, the club's electric game atmosphere, viewing parties and pre-match political stunts have increasingly tapped into a sense of collective Palestinian grief in this new era of war and displacement.

“We're united in the face of the war,” said Diego Khamis, director of the country's Palestinian community. “It's daily suffering.”

In a sport where authorities penalize athletes for flaunting political positions, particularly on such explosive issues as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Club Palestino is an unabashed exception that wears its pro-Palestinian politics on its sleeve — and on its torso, stadium seats and anywhere else it can find.

The club's brazen gestures have caused offense before. Chile's Football Federation fined the club in 2014 after the number “1” on the back of their shirts was shaped as a map of Palestine before Israel's creation in 1948.

But players' fierce pride in their Palestinian identity has otherwise caused little controversy in this country of 19 million, home to 500,000 ethnic Palestinians.

“It’s our roots and it feels like home,” said Jaime Barakat, a Palestino fan and shawarma vendor.

Leftist President Gabriel Boric, who called Israel a “genocidal, murderous state” on the campaign trail in 2021, has harshly criticized Israel’s campaign in Gaza. His government recalled the Israeli ambassador and joined South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide in the International Court of Justice — allegations that Israel denies.

Israel has pushed back, castigating Chile for what it sees as an insufficient response to Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 people and led to the abduction of 250 others.

The country's small Jewish population of 16,000 is unsettled. “Boric, who frequently speaks of peace, has imported the Middle East conflict to Chile,” the Jewish Community of Chile said in a statement.

Chile's Palestinians say the Mideast conflict was imported decades before Boric, spurring waves of displacement that forged the surprising history of Arab immigration to this Pacific coast nation from the late 1800s as the Ottoman Empire crumbled and the Zionist movement took root.

In 1920, the League of Nations approved the British Mandate of Palestine, unleashing tensions over Britain’s Balfour Declaration that promised historic Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people. More Palestinians crossed the Atlantic and braved treks across the Andes by mule to reach far-flung Chile. That same year, Club Palestino was created by a group of Palestinian soccer enthusiasts who gathered one winter day in Chile’s southern city of Osorno.

“My father told me they came here because there were more possibilities,” said 90-year-old Juan Sabaj Dhimes in Patronato, a historically Palestinian neighborhood in the capital, with its coffee shops and hookah bars splashed in the colors of the Palestinian national flag and plastered with Palestino club crests.

Chile's Palestinian community exploded after the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation — in which more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were pushed from their homes in what Arabs call the Nakba, or “catastrophe," and dispersed all over the world.

Chile was then an upwardly mobile nation among poorer neighbors seeking to attract migrants to populate the country. Palestinian descendants say the arid land, coastal desert and fresh figs and olives conjured an earlier generation’s nostalgia for historic Palestine.

“The climate is one of the things that most captivated the Palestinians who arrived,” said Mauricio Abu-Ghosh, former president of Chile's Palestinian Federation.

The scrappy soccer club went professional in 1947, becoming the pride of the community. Rocketing to Chile's top division and clinching five official titles, its appeal soon stretched to the Middle East, where the descendants of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan still congregate in camps and cafes to catch Palestino matches broadcast by satellite network Al Jazeera.

The team's political message also won supporters across Chile — a soccer-crazed country with a spirit of social activism and an ex-protest leader as president — and beyond.

Despite of being a small soccer club, with an average of only about 2,000 spectators per game, Deportivo Palestino — winner of five official titles and a regular fixture in continental tournaments — is the third most followed Chilean club on Instagram, with more than 741,000 followers, only behind eternal rivals Universidad de Chile (791,000) and Colo-Colo (2.3 million).

“They tell us about the violence suffered by their people,” said 20-year-old Chilean fan Luis Torres at Palestino's home stadium in Santiago. “It makes me angry, sad, so we're here to bring a bit of joy.”

Joy has been harder to come by in the Palestinian diaspora since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack triggered Israel's bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 40,000 Palestinians and spawned a humanitarian catastrophe.

Palestinians streaming out of church in Patronato on a recent Sunday said they had prayed for the safety of their families in Gaza. “We all have cousins, siblings, grandparents who still live there,” said Khamis.

The war has wrenched Palestino, forcing the club's training school in Gaza to shut down and disrupting programs it supports across the occupied West Bank.

But within Chile it has breathed new life into players and fans. Before kickoff, the team now rushes the pitch clad in keffiyehs, brandishing anti-war banners and taking a knee.

In May the team abandoned one little pre-match ritual of emerging on the field holding hands with child mascots. Instead, players extended their arms to the side, grasping at empty space.

It was a subtle gesture — a tribute to the “invisible children” killed in Gaza, the team later explained — that could have been lost entirely on ordinary soccer fans.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Mauricio Abu Ghosh, former president of Chile's Palestinian Federation, representing Palestinians living in Chile, gives an interview at Cafe Beit-Jala in Santiago, Chile, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. The Club Palestino soccer club in Chile went professional in 1947 and its appeal stretched to the Middle East, where the descendants of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan still congregate in camps and cafes to catch Palestino matches broadcast by satellite network Al Jazeera. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Mauricio Abu Ghosh, former president of Chile's Palestinian Federation, representing Palestinians living in Chile, right, stands outside Cafe Beit-Jala where he met with friends in Santiago, Chile, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. The Club Palestino soccer club in Chile went professional in 1947 and its appeal stretched to the Middle East, where the descendants of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan still congregate in camps and cafes to catch Palestino matches broadcast by satellite network Al Jazeera. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

A Club Palestino fan waves a Palestinian flag during a local league soccer match against Santiago Wanderers at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

Club Palestino soccer team fans celebrate their second goal against Santiago Wanderers at a local league match at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

A Club Palestino fan wears a keffiyeh during a local league soccer match against Santiago Wanderers at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

Club Palestino soccer team fans celebrate their second goal against Santiago Wanderers at a local league match at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

Club Palestino's Nicolas Linares plays in a local league soccer match against Santiago Wanderers at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

A Club Palestino player wears socks with an outline of territory Palestinians claim as theirs during a local league soccer match against Santiago Wanderers at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

Club Palestino soccer team fans watch their team play Santiago Wanderers at a local league match at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

Club Palestino soccer team fans watch their team's game with Santiago Wanderers at a local league match at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

Club Palestino supporters watch a local league match against Santiago Wanderers at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

Club Palestino soccer team fans celebrate their victory over Santiago Wanderers at a local league match at La Cisterna stadium in Santiago, Chile, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)