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“Our struggle will continue until the liberation of Palestine,” Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said.
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CAIRO,
October 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The spiritual leader of
the Palestinian Islamic resistance group Hamas addressed an Egyptian
student rally by telephone Wednesday, October 2, to mark the second
anniversary of the Palestinian uprising, participants said.
“Our
struggle will continue until the liberation of Palestine,” Sheikh
Ahmed Yassin told nearly 3,000 demonstrators at the university of the
northern city of Zagazig, in a speech from Gaza City carried by
loudspeakers, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
“We
shall sacrifice our blood and soul for you, Palestine,” chanted the
students.
They
also protested U.S. biased support for Israel and Washington’s plans
to wage war on Iraq.
“Who
are the terrorists, the children of Iraq or the Americans?” read one
of their banners.
Police
surrounded the university campus but there was no clash as the
demonstrators remained inside, in line with an Egyptian ban on street
protests, AFP said.
A
similar protest took place Tuesday, October 1, at the university of
the northern city of Menufiya, and thousands marched in Cairo and the
Mediterranean port city of Alexandria on Saturday, September 28 in
solidarity with the Palestinians, chanting slogans against Israel and
its main ally the United States.
A
Hamas political leader, Abdul Aziz Rantissi, also addressed the
Menufiya crowd by telephone.
Thousands
of Palestinians held street protests in the Gaza Strip Saturday,
September 28, to mark the second anniversary of their Intifada,
pledging to continue the uprising.
Yassin
vowed there would be no let-up in the Intifada, which has gone from a
popular uprising into a low-level armed conflict between the Israeli
army and Palestinian militant groups.
“The
martyrdom operations will continue and will escalate because this is
the only weapon we have and this enemy understands only the language
of force,” he told AFP.
Also
marking the Intifada anniversary, earlier in Lebanon, about 6,000
Palestinian refugees protested at the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp, a
day after a massive rally in Beirut gathered 100,000 supporters of the
resistance group Hezbollah.
Also
in Jordan, the only Arab state besides Egypt to have a peace treaty
with Israel, 1,000 people took to the streets and demanded the kingdom
break its ties with the Jewish state.
Meanwhile,
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher on Wednesday expressed Egypt’s
“deep regret” over a U.S. law demanding the American embassy in
Israel be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“We
deeply regret the adoption of this bill, especially in the current
circumstances, this measures comes as a encouragement to Israel,”
Maher told reporters.
Egypt,
a key U.S. ally in the Arab world, had hoped the U.S. Congress and
administration would “exert pressure on Israel to implement
international resolutions, instead of giving it a kind of a reward
that is unacceptable in the current circumstances,” the minister
said.
However,
he pointed out that U.S. President George W. Bush had opposed the
bill.
Maher
said Arab states would discuss the “measures they have to take to
underline their refusal of anything that could harm (the status of)
Jerusalem.”
He
said Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud, whose country currently
chairs the 22-member Arab League, had contacted him over the new U.S.
law.
Arab
League chief Amr Mussa earlier said the U.S. congressional move was a
violation of UN resolutions.
Along
with many other countries, the United States maintains its embassy in
Israel in Tel Aviv to reflect the contested nature of Arab east
Jerusalem, which the Jewish state occupied in 1967. 
