SANTIAGO, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Around 200 members of Chile's Palestinian community, the largest in South America, dumped hundreds of old shoes outside the Israeli embassy in Santiago on Thursday to protest Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Inspired by an Iraqi journalist who narrowly missed U.S. President George W. Bush with his shoes and chanting "The Nazi Zionists are terrorists," the protesters called for an end to Israel's 13-day-old offensive in Gaza.

"We are here to repudiate the state of Israel, to show that we are suffering because of this and so that the country understands that we are being massacred," said Mauricio Abu-Ghosh, president of the Palestinian Federation in Chile.

Chile is home to 120,000 people of Palestinian descent, community leaders say, making it one of the largest expatriate Palestinian communities in the West. (Reporting by Claudio Cerda; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

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