RAMALLAH, West Bank, 13 September 2003 — Surrounded by cars crushed in past raids by Israeli tanks, a group of young Palestinians spent the night on the doorstep of Yasser Arafat’s battered office vowing to protect him from Israeli expulsion. “The Israelis will have to kill us to get at Abu Ammar — over our dead bodies,” said Juma’a Abu Shousha, 19, using the Palestinian president’s nom de guerre.
Calling Arafat an obstacle to peace but under US pressure not to exile him after suicide bombers killed 15 Israelis on Tuesday, Israel’s Security Cabinet vowed on Thursday “to remove” him “in a manner that will be determined separately”. The wording of the internationally rejected decision left open options that could include killing Arafat or expelling him from Palestinian territory.
After news of Israel’s decision, thousands of Palestinians flocked to Arafat’s headquarters in the Israeli-surrounded city of Ramallah in the West Bank, under the watchful eyes of Israeli soldiers in buildings overlooking the compound.
Tens of thousands of other Palestinians took to the streets in other cities in the West Bank and Gaza in a show of popular support for their leader, who was forced by pressure at home and abroad to appoint a reformist prime minister in April.
“You are brave people, my loved ones. Abu Ammar is staying here,” a beaming Arafat, who seems to thrive whenever Israel moves against him, told the crowd at his headquarters as he blew kisses and flashed V-for-victory signs.
“You are the ones who are capable of responding to this Israeli threat,” he said, dressed in military uniform and wearing his trademark Arab “kefiyah” (head scarf). Israeli roadblocks have virtually confined Arafat, 74, to his two-floor office for the past 21 months.
Palestinian officials said Arafat’s expulsion would cause uncontrollable violence that could spread beyond Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Zakaria Al-Zubaidi, a leading member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group within Arafat’s Fatah faction, said it would respond to any attempt to exile him “by attacking Israelis everywhere — inside Israel and the occupied areas”. Fatah called for massive demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in support of Arafat after Friday prayers.
In the northern West Bank town of Jenin, masked militants marched alongside thousands of demonstrators, firing shots into the air and promising to unleash a wave of attacks on Israel if it makes good on a decision in principle to remove what it calls the “obstacle to peace” of Arafat.
In Nablus, some 2,000 people took to the streets, while more than 3,000 gathered in a similar show of support in Qalqiliya. “Touching President Arafat is a red line that must not be crossed. Our arms will not remain crossed if Israel attacks him,” Nablus town Governor Mahmoud Al-Allul told the crowd.
Hundreds marched to swear allegiance to the veteran Palestinian leader in the southern West Bank, in Bethlehem and Hebron. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of Arafat’s mainstream Fatah movement, threatened to “strike everywhere” in Israel if the Jewish state acted on its decision to the Palestinian leader.
“We proclaim in a loud voice that, if this decision is carried out, we promise to take on all Israel and strike everywhere without exception. There will be no red line and we will not make any distinction between great and small,” a statement sent to AFP said.
