GAZA CITY, 13 August 2005 — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas vowed yesterday the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip marked a huge step in his people’s quest for an independent state, with a capital in Jerusalem.
“Today Gaza and tomorrow Jerusalem if God wills it,” Abbas told a demonstration, attended by thousands, on Gaza City’s Mediterranean coastline.
“Today, our march to freedom begins. Tomorrow, it will be Jenin’s turn and after that Jerusalem,” Abbas told the crowd at the gathering, called “the Festival of Victory and Freedom.” The crowd roared back Abbas’ popular name: “Abu Mazen, Abu Mazen”.
The Israeli Army’s evacuation of 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip is due to begin Monday, followed by the dismantlement of four Jewish settlements near Jenin in the northern West Bank.
The withdrawal has launched a period of political jockeying between Abbas and his political rivals, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Abbas said the departure of the Israelis from Gaza offered the Palestinian people “a point of departure for the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital”.
In his address delivered at a small fishing port in Gaza City, he said: “Today we are beginning the march of the fishermen toward freedom. Soon you will be able to fish along the whole coast of Palestine.”
During a speech earlier this week before the Parliament, Abbas urged the Palestinian people to ensure the pullout took place free of violence in order to bolster their case for independence.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon raised the prospect yesterday that Israel could eventually uproot more settlements on occupied land after it evacuates its enclaves in Gaza and a pocket of the West Bank in coming weeks. Sharon, in an interview with the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, reiterated that his “disengagement plan” was meant to strengthen Israel’s hold on West Bank settlement blocs, which it intends to keep under any future peace deal with Palestinians.
However, asked about the fate of some of the more isolated West Bank settlements, Sharon said: “Not everything will remain. That issue will be raised during the final stage of negotiations with the Palestinians.” With five days to go before the start of Israel’s eviction of Gaza settlers, Sharon’s comments hinted at a softening of his stance against further withdrawals.
In the face of fierce rightist opposition to his pullout plan, Sharon had recently insisted he has no intention of giving up any more settlements beyond the 21 in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank already scheduled for evacuation.
