GAZA CITY, 29 September 2003 — Palestinian groups renewed their vows yesterday to continue the intifada uprising against Israel as thousands of people around the Middle East hit the streets to mark its third anniversary.
“Resistance is the only language that the enemy understands and the only means to free Palestine from occupation,” said the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.
Hamas pledged to “continue the intifada until occupation ends and we demand that the Palestinian Authority and new government resist pressure from the Americans and the Zionists aimed at ending our right to resist.”
Rallies were held in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Egypt, with demonstrators calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and voiced frustration over the US-backed Middle East peace plan known as the road map.
At least 3,497 people have been killed — 2,612 Palestinians and 822 Israelis — since the intifada began at the end of September 2000.
Serious violence erupted on Sept. 29 of that year with bloody clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in annexed East Jerusalem.
But many Palestinians say it was sparked when the then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon, now prime minister, paid a provocative visit to the compound the previous day.
With millions of Palestinian refugees scattered throughout the Middle East, the intifada has had widespread repercussions on stability, and has become a cause celebre in the Arab and Muslim world. It has also fueled resentment against the United States, the main backer and ally of Israel.
In the West Bank town of Nablus yesterday, some 5,000 Palestinians hit the streets in a new rally to mark the anniversary.
The demonstrators, many carrying Palestinian flags and those of Hamas and its smaller rival Islamic Jihad, marched from Al-Najah University to the town center, chanting slogans of defiance.
“Get rid of the occupation not our leaders,” was the common refrain, a reference to Israel’s threat to exile Arafat.
They set fire to a cardboard replica of an aircraft with an Israeli flag.
Israeli soldiers in the town did not intervene and the rally passed off without incident. A similar demonstration took place in southern Lebanon, where more than 8,000 people, many of them supporters of Hamas and the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, praised the attacks on Israel.
Further south at Fatima Gate on the Lebanese-Israeli border, Hezbollah staged a demonstration of more than 1,000 women wearing black chador robes.
For many radical Palestinians, the “liberation of Palestine” means not only an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip but also the elimination of the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders were in the final phase of approving a new Cabinet under Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qorei, the Palestinians’ chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday. Leaders of Arafat’s Fatah movement approved a new Cabinet on Saturday, but officials said the list was not final. The lineup announced on Saturday contained many familiar faces who the United States and Israel would likely view as unwilling or unable to meet their demands to dismantle Palestinian militant groups and carry out other reforms required by the road map peace plan.
— Additional input from agencies
