Fatah Organizes Rally to Commemorate Arafat's Death
By Matthew Williams
13:51, November 12th 2007
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Fatah Organizes Rally to Commemorate Arafat's Death

On Monday more than 100,000 of Palestinians, Fatah supporters gathered in Gaza City to participate at the memorial ceremony for Yasser Arafat, AFP reports.

The Gaza square was filled by a sea of yellow Fatah flags, the party founded by Arafat and now under the lead of president Mahmud Abbas. This was the biggest rally since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip.

The Fatah supporters waved Palestinians flags and big portraits of Arafat wearing his trade-mark black-and-white chequered kuffiyeh and from the loudspeakers nationalist songs were being played. The party officials shouted for unity.

On Sunday, when three years since Arafat’s death were celebrated, Hamas broke a number of smaller Fatah demonstrations and arrested some of the supporters.

According to AFP the paramilitary wounded three of the demonstrators in the refugee camp of Nusseirat.

Ten checkpoints were erected by Hamas across Gaza’s main north-south road in order to control vehicles that were going to the event. According to Fatah officials some of the busses were turned back and the passengers were forced to continue their trip by foot, Reuters reports. However, Hamas denied these accusations.

The Palestinian Authority set up by Arafat in 1994 controls now only parts of the areas of the West Bank. Hamas is occupying the Gaza Strip since June when Fatah Party was ousted.

Abbas held a speech at Arafat’s tomb calling for Hamas to give him control of Gaza.

He said: “You will not hide the truth of what you have created the establishment of an isolated entity controlled by a faction that rejects democracy and the values at the heart of our modern struggle.”

Although Hamas rejected Arafat’s policies while he was alive, it praised the former leader.

Fawzi Barhum, spokesman of the Hamas, told AFP: “We often agreed with the president Abu Ammar (Arafat) and we often disagreed with him, but in spite of this we consider him a symbol of the Palestinian nation.”

Arafat died at the age of 75 and his cause of death is still a mystery. Israel faced accusations made by several Palestinians officials telling that he was poisoned, but medical officials didn’t manage to determine the cause of death.



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