JAILED Palestinian leader Marwan al Barghouthi urged the Palestinian leadership to give its backing to ‘armed resistance’ against Israel in a letter published on Tuesday as a wave of violence surged.
The call came after months of clashes in and around occupied East Jerusalem and a growing number of deadly Palestinian attacks.
In a letter to mark 10 years since the death of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Barghouthi said that ‘choosing global and armed resistance’ was being ‘faithful to Arafat’s legacy, to his ideas, and his principles for which tens of thousands died as martyrs’.
Barghouthi, who led the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005, wrote the letter from his cell in Israel’s Hadarim prison where he is serving five life sentences.
A senior figure within the Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas, Barghouthi was arrested in 2002 and sentenced two years later. Barghouthi said he has never supported attacks on civilians inside Israel.
He still wields huge influence from inside prison and is considered the only serious challenger to Abbas as president, with surveys regularly naming him as favourite to win elections should he be released from jail.
He wrote: ‘It is imperative to reconsider our choice of resistance as a way of defeating the occupier.’
With tensions also mounting at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, Barghouthi urged the Palestinian leadership to take action and make good on threats to end security cooperation with Israel.
He continued ‘The Palestinian Authority must review its priorities and its mission … and put an immediate end to security cooperation which is only strengthening the occupation.
He remarked on the assasination of Arafat, saying it was the result of ‘an official Israeli-American decision’. Arafat died in a military hospital near Paris on November 11, 2004
Two years ago, Swiss experts who examined his personal effects reported finding ‘abnormal’ levels of polonium, an extremely radioactive toxin, fuelling the widespread belief that he was poisoned by Israel.
• President Abbas on Tuesday accused Israel of trying to drag the region into a religious war, and urged the Israeli government to stop all provocative behaviours.
In a televised speech to mark ten years since the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the presidential compound in Ramallah, Abbas said he and other Palestinian Authority leaders still planned to submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council seeking an end to the Israeli occupation.
He said that if the resolution did not pass, the PA would join various international organisations. Abbas said: ‘We will sign all conventions and join all organisations starting with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in order to protect our people.’
Abbas also addressed the clashes which have gripped occupied East Jerusalem for the past four months and spoke about unrest at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound triggered by the demands of far-right Jewish fringe groups for the right to pray there.
He pledged: ‘The Palestinians will defend Al-Aqsa and the churches against the settlers and extremists.’
The Hamas movement has immediately condemned and denied involvement in Friday’s bomb attacks, which caused damage to Fatah members’ property.
• Israeli forces on Tuesday morning raided Askar refugee camp in Nablus in the northern West Bank and detained the father and brothers of the Palestinian who stabbed to death an Israeli soldier in Tel Aviv on Monday.
Palestinian security sources said that several Israeli military vehicles raided Askar al-Jadid before troops ransacked the home of Abu Hashiya family and detained Khalid Abu Hashiya and his sons Izz al-Din, Muhammad, and Walid.
Witnesses said Israeli troops damaged the interior of the house. Locals said that the family started to evacuate furniture fearing demolition of the house by Israeli forces.
On Monday, Nur al-Din Abu Hashiya allegedly stabbed an Israeli soldier at a bridge in Tel Aviv. The soldier succumbed to his wounds later on Monday evening.
Dozens of Palestinian youths have clashed with armed Israeli police near Ramallah. The clashes broke out on Monday evening in the West Bank town of Sinjil north of Ramallah.
Ibrahim Alwan, deputy mayor of Sinjil, said: ‘Large numbers of the Israeli army raided the village and fired dozens of tear-gas grenades,’ adding that residents in the area suffocated as a result of gas inhalation and that Palestinian youngsters threw stones at the soldiers.
He also pointed out that the Israeli Defence Force stormed the town after two Israeli settlers were wounded when their vehicle was stoned on the road between Nablus and Ramallah.
In the Teq’oa-Har Homa road near Bayt Sahur, a motorcyclist sustained light injuries after being hit by stones thrown by Palestinians.
Northwest of Ramallah, Palestinians threw a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli car. Near the Halhul bridge on the Gush Etzyon-Hebron road, Palestinians threw stones at Israeli vehicles.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has issued an official response to Monday’s stabbing of an Israeli soldier in Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu said: ‘Terrorism directed against us has no limits, it is directed to all parts of the country equally. The terrorists want to remove us from anywhere we are.’
‘I promise you one thing – they will not succeed in that. We will continue to fight terrorism, which we have been fighting since the State was established.’
Netanyahu also addressed the ongoing riots across Israel, including in Jerusalem and the north.
‘We will fight incitement led by the Palestinian National Authority.
‘We will act firmly against rioters who call for Israel’s destruction. To all the demonstrators who have rallied against the state and for the Palestinian National Authority, I want to say one thing: you are welcome to move out.
‘The State of Israel will not make things difficult. But for those who remain we will make life difficult for the rioters and terrorists.’
‘I have instructed for the full severity of the law to be enforced, including the demolitions of terrorists’ homes and other measures. Such disturbances will not be tolerated.’
• Speaker of the Palestinian union of civil servants Bassam Zakarneh has been hospitalised after a sudden illness while in Palestinian Authority custody, medics said.
Zakarneh needs catheter surgery, they said.
A Palestinian court on Tuesday extended the remand of Zakarana for 15 more days for further investigation.
He was arrested upon a warrant by President Mahmoud Abbas’ bureau based on a statement which said the union of civil servants was an illegal body established without legal basis.
The presidential statement said that the union continued to operate despite warnings, which ‘resulted in harm to state properties and to the interests of homeland and citizens’.
