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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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