BASS, Lebanon, 9 September 2003 — Some 6,000 Palestinian refugees demonstrated here yesterday to back their embattled leader, Yasser Arafat, and denounce Israel’s killings of Palestinian militant leaders.
The protestors marched through the streets of the Bass refugee camp, near the southern port city of Tyre, in a demonstration organized by the Palestine Liberation Organization.
“The Palestinians of the diaspora pledge complete allegience to President Arafat,” read banners carried by the protestors, many of whom were holding pictures of Arafat and Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Yassin was lightly wounded in a Gaza air strike on Saturday by the Israeli Arrmy. Among the protestors were about 50 children holding plastic rifles and wearing military uniforms as well as black headbands reading: “Palestine is ours” and “we shall return.”
