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Palestinians Mark Al-Aqsa Intifada Under Israeli Fire
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Palestinians
boys sit in front of a destroyed Fateh office in
Gaza
. (Reuters)
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By
Ola Attallah, IOL Correspondent
GAZA
CITY, September 28, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The Palestinian people
marked Wednesday, September 28, the fifth anniversary of Al-Aqsa
Intifada against the Israeli occupation under successive Israeli air
strikes with their cities pounded by heavy artillery for the fist time
since the 1967 Middle East war.
Some
4,130 Palestinians, including 766 children and 269 women, have been
killed and 45,486 others wounded in the five years since the Intifada
erupted after then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon desecrated
Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine, on September 28, 2000.
Israel
has arrested 8,600 Palestinians, including 288 children and 115 women,
in the same corresponding period in addition to up to 300 others
rounded up in frantic arrests by occupation troops over the past four
days.
Israel
overnight arrested more than 20 Palestinians in its continued massive
raids.
More
than 72,105 houses were damaged in almost non-stop air strikes on the
Gaza Strip and the
West Bank
after the outbreak of the second Intifada.
More
and more,
Israel
has devastated 76,867 donums, uprooted up to one million trees and
laid waste to 405 wells, the lifeline of many Palestinians.
Over
the past four years,
Israel
has also targeted Palestinian journalists to kill the truth.
Israeli
forces have killed eight Palestinian reporters, injured 100 others and
arrested hundreds in addition to confiscating their cameras to impose
a media blackout on their aggression.
Continued
Attacks
Israel
escalated its offensive against Palestinian rocket strikes overnight
in the Gaza Strip, as warplanes carried out raids and artillery
pounded the territory for the first time since the 1967
Middle East
war.
Apache
helicopter gunships slammed missiles into offices owned by President
Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah party as pilots sent rockets screeching
into Palestinian security offices elsewhere in Gaza City, although
there were no reports of casualties, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Israeli
aircraft also attacked a building used by the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine in the Bureij refugee camp in central
Gaza
.
Palestinian
resistance factions have been observing a de facto truce since
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was elected in January, an
agreement that was cemented at talks brokered by
Egypt
last March.
The
latest escalation began when
Israel
assassinated three Islamic Jihad fighters on Friday, prompting the
resistance movement to fire three rockets into the Israeli town of
Sderot
.
Shortly
afterwards, Israeli warplanes bombarded a Hamas rally in the Jabalya
refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, killing 19 people and
injuring dozens.
Adding
insult to injury,
Israel
assassinated two Hamas members in a deadly air strike in Al-Zaitoun
district to the south of the Strip, prompting retaliation threats from
Hamas.
Though Palestinian
resistance factions reaffirmed Tuesday, September 27, abidance by a
shaky truce reached in February,
Israel
threatened to assassinate senior Hamas leaders.
Chief
among Hamas figures who were assassinated by
Israel
include spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and his successor Abdul
Aziz Al-Rantissi.
Paying
Off
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Sharon
ruled out any concessions on the major
West Bank
settlement blocs and Al-Quds. (Reuters)
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But
five years of sacrifices and unabated resistance have paid off in view
of the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip, though Palestinian have
long warned that the territory will remain occupied as
Israel
will retain control of land borders, air space and territorial waters,
while entrenching its hold on the larger
West Bank
.
"Israel
had tried by all means to force the Palestinian people to swallow its
occupation of the Palestinian lands, but finally it decided to
withdraw from Gaza under the tough Palestinian resistance
attacks," political analyst Ashraf Al-Ajrami told IslamOnline.net
Wednesday.
"Al-Aqsa
Intifada has resulted in the liberation of the Gaza Strip," added
Ghazi Hamas, the greatest victory in history of the Palestinian
people," Ghazi Hamad, a political analyst and writer.
"Resistance
fighters have struck at the heart of Israeli settlements and the
Israelis have come to realize that they will be insecure as long as
they are occupying the Gaza Strip," he added.
But
Hani Al-Masri, a famed columnist and an analyst, warned of an
overjoyed reaction.
"We
are on the threshold of a new dangerous and highly sensitive era as
Israel
will intensify its judaization of Al-Quds and build more settlements
on Palestinian land in the occupied
West Bank
," he said.
"I'm
afraid that
Israel
will impose now a fait accompli and entrench its foothold on the
West Bank
."
Palestinians
hope
Gaza
will become the embryo of a much-hoped state. They want their state to
include the larger
West Bank
and occupied Al-Quds (Arab East Jerusalem).
Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been selling the
Gaza
pullout to hostile domestic opinion by stressing that he obtained US
guarantees that large settlement blocs in the
West Bank
would never be threatened by final status negotiations with the
Palestinians.
Further
fuelling Palestinian fears, he ruled out in press statements any
concessions on the major
West Bank
settlement blocs, Al-Quds and the Palestinian refugees.
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