GAZA CITY, 30 March — If Israel thought that declaring Yasser Arafat an enemy would isolate the Palestinian president or weaken the resistance against occupation, the reaction of the ordinary Palestinians and their leaders might have come as a rude shock to the Zionist entity.
Palestinian factions from across the political and religious spectrum united yesterday in defiance against Israel’s assault on Arafat’s compound in the West Bank and promised to fight back.
The Nationalist and Islamic Forces, a 13-member coalition which groups Arafat’s Fatah movement and Hamas and Islamic Jihad, promised to defend the Palestinian territories after Israeli tanks rolled into Arafat’s spacious compound in the city of Ramallah.
The coalition, which has helped coordinate Palestinian strategy since the start of the 18-month uprising, or intifada, against Israeli occupation said it would “unite to defend the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”
“The National and Islamic forces met yesterday in Gaza City and called for all the military groups to unite against the (Israeli) aggression and defend the Palestinian people,” a coalition member from Hamas said.
A high-ranking Fatah official, Zakaria Al-Agha, who has been a key figure in talks between the Palestinian factions, warned that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “has declared war on the Palestinian people. It is natural that we unite.
“The Israelis occupy us and kill civilians. We cannot throw flowers at them,” Agha said, adding: “It is normal to resist Israeli aggression by all means.”
Hamas, which claimed two attacks against Israelis over the last two days, swore Israel would pay dearly for its occupation of Ramallah, where the army stormed Arafat’s compound and machine-gunned his offices.
“The Israelis will pay a high price for its aggression in Ramallah,” said Abdul Aziz Al-Rantissi, a leader of the group’s political wing in Gaza City.
In Gaza, thousands of Palestinians marched yesterday to show support for Arafat, saying a “river of blood” from suicide attacks would flow if Israel hurt him.
Islamic Jihad, which claimed the stabbing of two Israelis in the Gaza Strip in the morning yesterday, also vowed more bloodshed. “The coming days will see an unprecedented intensification of the Palestinian resistance,” said Jihad official Khaled Al-Batsh, adding that the group’s armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, would carry out more attacks on Israel.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) threatened to hit “every Israeli” the world over.
“Every Israeli will be the target of the Palestinian people. We will resist Israel’s extermination war by all means, and the Palestinian people inside and outside (the occupied territories) will hit everywhere,” Maher Taher, a member of the PFLP’s political bureau, said in Damascus.
“We will wage a global war to defend our existence, and the Palestinian people’s capacities have not dried up,” he warned.
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the third major member of the Palestine Liberation Organization after Fatah and the PFLP, urged “Palestinian fighters to unite and fight back with weapons against the tanks and the army of Israeli occupation.”
It demanded Syria, Lebanon and Jordan allow their massive Palestinian refugee populations to “exit the refugee camps to go to support the intifada in the Palestinian territories,” the group said in a statement.
In Gaza City, demonstrators rallied yesterday outside the Palestinian Parliament and shouted pro-Hamas slogans.
“Hamas’s day has come,” demonstrators shouted in the presence of Hamas’ leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. “Sharon, death is near,” they said.
