Palestinians Mark 2ND Intifadha, Uprising , Anniversary

29/09/2002| IslamWeb

HIGHLIGHTS: Celebrations Continue Even as 2 More Palestinians Were Killed in Clashes with Occupation Troops||Arafat Addresses Demonstrators by Phone from his Besieged Headquarters||Israel Closes District Coordination Office in Gaza||Hamas Spiritual Leader, SH Ahmad Yassin, Says Resistance Only Way to Achieve Palestinian National Objectives||Israeli Arabs and Some Arab Capitals Mark 2nd Intifadha Anniversary with Protests against Israel & the United States||Sharon Dispatches Aide to Washington to Discuss Arafat's Future with White House|| STORY: Sending balloons rather than bullets into the sky, thousands of Palestinians demonstrated on the second anniversary of their uprising against Israel, even as two more died in clashes with Israeli occupation troops.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, under Israeli siege in his headquarters for the 10th day, promised to continue the struggle for a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. He made his remarks by telephone to tens of thousands of marchers in Gaza City.

"Noble Jerusalem will remain the capital of the Palestinian state," Arafat said over a loudspeaker, repeating his long-standing position. "We are not only defending our holy places, Christian and Islamic, but every inch of our holy land."

An ambitious peace effort under a more moderate Israeli government broke down in January 2001, in part over the extent of a Palestinian role in Jerusalem, which the current Israeli government says is its indivisible capital.

Palestinian police reported another step in Israel's increasing estrangement from Palestinian officials. They said Israel on Saturday closed the District Coordinating Office in the Gaza Strip. It had been set up after an earlier peace agreement so that Israeli and Palestinian security officials could share information. Israel's occupation army had no comment late Saturday.

Israel appeared to be reaching past Palestinian leaders to their people. The occupation army said that as of Sunday, it would raise the number of workers permitted to enter Israel from Palestinian areas to 25,000 from 15,000, and the number of business people to 8,000 from 5,000.

BALLOONS INSTEAD OF BULLETS

Organizers said they had asked Resistance groups not to bring guns to the rally in Gaza City, where some earlier protests had been peppered with shots fired into the air. They said 50,000 people turned out. The crowd waved Palestinian flags and chanted support for Arafat, whose standing had appeared to flag before the latest Israeli siege.

Protesters in several West Bank communities, including Ramallah and a refugee camp near Bethlehem, sent hundreds of balloons into the sky. Children clutching candles gathered by night at Arafat's Jericho office and heard the leader tell them by phone, "You are our future. We are together until victory."

It seemed unlikely that the shift away from violent protests would mean a halt to the Resistance groups' attacks on Israelis, which Arafat himself has condemned. The attacks sparked Israel's seizure of most of the West Bank's Palestinian cities.

Speaking to reporters at the rally from his car while surrounded by bodyguards, the founder of the radical Islamic group Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, urged the intefadeh to continue. "Resistance is the only way to achieve our goals and recover our rights," he said.

OCCUPATION TROOPS KILL 2 MORE PALESTINIANS

Palestinian sources said Israeli occupation troops shot and killed two men on Friday.

Relatives and doctors said an unarmed 25-year-old Palestinian man was killed by Israeli machine-gun fire early Saturday when he stepped out of his house in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said he had been shooting at troops who returned fire.

Doctors at Shifa Hospital said that Mohammed Abu Ahoueh, 19, was shot in the head and killed while throwing stones in clashes near the Netzarim settlement of Israelis in the Gaza Strip. The military said demonstrators had neared an army post and "the soldiers were forced to fire to protect themselves."

Israel's occupation army reoccupied most West Bank towns in June. On most days, occupation troops have prevented residents from leaving their houses even to go to schools, jobs, pharmacies or bakeries. The Palestinian economy, already impoverished, has been devastated.

SHARON DISPATCHES AIDE TO WASHINGTON TO DISCUSS ARAFAT'S FUTURE

Israeli officials said Saturday that Sharon had sent a senior aide, Dov Weisglass, to Washington to discuss the siege on Arafat's compound with U.S. officials. But White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said he had no information about upcoming White House meetings by Weisglass.

Israeli occupation troops attacked Arafat's Ramallah headquarters on Sept. 19. They smashed most of its buildings and trapping the Palestinian leader with about 200 aides inside.

On Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council demanded that Israel end the operation in Ramallah and pull troops out of Palestinian territories it had occupied.

The White House said last week that President Bush also sent a message urging Israel to halt the operation, though Sharon has insisted that the Palestinians must first turn over alleged terrorists among those with Arafat in the compound.

ISRAELI ARABS AND SOME ARAB CAPITALS MARK 2ND INTIFADHA ANNIVERSARY

Thousands of people also attended a rally Saturday at Kfar Manda in northern Israel to mark the intefadeh anniversary and honor 13 Israeli Arabs who died in clashes with security forces in October 2000.

West Bank intelligence chief Tarik Tirawi, who is wanted by Israel, spoke to the crowd by telephone from Arafat's headquarters and said those inside would not surrender or allow outsiders to impose leaders on the Palestinians.

With chants of "Death to Israel!" and "Death to America," tens of thousands of supporters of the intefadeh also marched through the streets of Beirut. Smaller crowds appeared in Cairo and other Arab capitals.

The uprising broke out on Sept. 28, 2000, after Sharon, then Israel's opposition leader, visited the most disputed site in Jerusalem: what Jews refer to as the Temple Mount and Palestinians as the Haram as-Sharif mosque complex.

Rioting spread through the West Bank and Gaza Strip and it soon became known as the second "intefadeh," after a 1987-1993 uprising that helped lead to interim peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian protesters march carrying the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's picture in the West Bank town of Ramallah Saturday Sep. 28 , 2002. Palestinians mark Saturday the second anniversary of the "Intefadeh" - rioting that spread through the West Bank and Gaza Strip starting Sept. 28, 2000, when Israel's then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the most-disputed site in Jerusalem, what Jews refer to as the Temple Mount and Palestinians as the Haram as-Sharif mosque complex. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasse