GAZA CITY, 30 April 2004 — Tens of thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in Gaza City yesterday to support Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who has said he is unfazed by Israel’s thinly veiled threats to assassinate him.
Waving portraits of the veteran leader and Palestinian flags, the crowd gathered in front of the Parliament building before marching to the ruins of Arafat’s Gaza headquarters, demolished by Israeli air raids more than two years ago. Dozens of gunmen, including militants from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — the radical offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah party — took part in the demonstration.
From the compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah, where he has been trapped by the Israeli Army since December 2001, Arafat addressed the crowd through loudspeakers and insisted he was unruffled following threats against him by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
“My life is not more dear to me than that of any Palestinian boy or a girl. We’re all martyrs in the making in defense of our holy Muslim and Christian places,” said Arafat, largely confined to his half-wrecked compound by Israeli forces since late 2001.
“There will be no retreat from (the drive to) achieve independence, freedom and an independent state” despite continued Israeli military incursions against Palestinian militants and assassinations of their leaders, he said.
“We will not abandon our quest for independence and freedom despite the repression, assassinations and crimes perpetrated by the occupier,” Arafat added. Sharon issued his most explicit threat against Arafat to date last Friday, prompting a barrage of international condemnations and calls for restraint.
Sharon said last he no longer felt bound by a pledge he made in 2001 to US President George W. Bush not to harm Arafat. His remarks aimed to rally support in his extreme right-wing Likud party for his plan to withdraw settlers from Gaza.
US officials urged Sharon to stick to his pledge. A deputy to the Israeli prime minister said later there was no plan to take out Arafat in the near future, saying Sharon’s statement was only “a position in principle”.
Israel accuses Arafat of fomenting militant attacks on Israelis - a charge he denies - and refuses to deal with him. Sharon intends to couple an evacuation of Gaza with a strengthened grip on major settlements in the larger West Bank.
“There is no place for Israeli occupation in our Palestinian land. There is no place for Israeli settlement,” Arafat said.
“There is no place for their racist wall,” he added, referring to a barrier Israel is building around West Bank settlements.
Protesters cheered, waving posters of Arafat and Palestinian flags. “We will sacrifice our blood and souls for Abu Ammar,” they chanted, using Arafat’s nom de guerre.
“Any attempt to harm our symbol and our leader will only lead to the destruction of any peace process and to a lack of security and stability in the whole region,” Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel-Rahim told reporters at the rally.
An explosion destroyed the front entrance of the Palestinian police chief’s home in the Gaza Strip yesterday but no one was injured, police and witnesses said. Residents of the Gaza Strip and West Bank have voiced alarm at a breakdown in law and order accelerated by continued Israeli Army invasions against Palestinians that have impaired the ability of local security forces to fulfill their duties.
Gaza police chief Ghazi Al-Jabali left the house just before the predawn blast but his wife was at home. Palestinian police said they were investigating the explosion, apparently caused by a booby trapped bomb set off by a tripwire. The blast blew away the entrance and damaged a stairwell but no one was injured.
Jabali, a high-ranking Palestinian Authority security figure who has been Gaza’s police chief for most of the past decade in which the Authority has run it under an interim peace deal with Israel now in tatters, could not be reached for a response.
Gazans fear security could collapse completely if Israel carries out its unilateral plan to evacuate soldiers and settlers from occupied areas of Gaza, although Palestinian officials vow to keep order.
A Palestinian from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was killed by Israeli army troops during an attack on a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Palestinian medical sources and the armed group said.
The man, identified as Thaer Abu Srur, 20, was wounded after opening fire on Israeli soldiers guarding Kadim settlement in the northern West Bank late Wednesday, the group said in a statement. He died overnight, the medical sources said.
