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Israeli Violence Escalates as Palestinians Mark Intifada Anniversary
GAZA CITY, Sept 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Three Palestinians were killed Saturday and at least 120 were wounded by Israeli occupation troops in the West Bank and Gaza as the current Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land entered its second year, news agencies reported.
The attacks also come days after a truce agreed upon by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and weeks after a unilateral Palestinian declaration of a ceasefire.
Ribhi Al Baid, 50, was killed when an Israeli tank shell slammed into his house in Hebron where Israeli occupation troops surround an illegal Jewish settlement in the center of the West Bank city.
A 27-year-old Palestinian man was also killed in the southern Gaza town of Rafah from wounds he received the night before after being shot by Israeli occupation troops, medical sources said.
Another Palestinian youth, 17, later died after being shot as he and a group of children and teenagers resisted Israeli occupation soldiers guarding an illegal Jewish settlement in Gaza.
Medical sources said a total of 121 Palestinians were wounded in clashes around Gaza Saturday, the day after the first anniversary of the Intifada against internationally condemned Israeli occupation.
The attacks came as tens of thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Saturday, the second day of action to mark the first anniversary of the latest Palestinian uprising, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
In the West Bank, some 20,000 demonstrators gathered in the northern city of Nablus, and thousands more demonstrated in the cities of Qalqilya, Tulkarem and Jenin.
Some 10,000 protestors crowded the streets of Gaza City.
At every demonstration, protestors raised Palestinian and other Arab flags and vowed to keep alive their uprising against Israeli occupation.
The governor of Nablus, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, addressed a crowd that included members of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's resistance Fatah movement saying, "We have crossed into the second year of the Intifada. We are more persistent in our national demands. We insist on continuing the Intifada since it is the road leading to salvation from occupation."
The latest uprising against illegal Israeli occupation has claimed the lives of more than 800 people - the vast majority being Palestinians, of whom the majority are children and teenagers - due to excessive Israeli violence condemned by the international community, including the U.S. - Israel's staunchest ally.
Another 35,000 Palestinians have been injured, 27% of whom are children under the age of 18. The youngest was a 4-month-old baby shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.
Aloul criticized the ceasefire agreement reached Wednesday between Arafat and Peres under heavy pressure from the United States as it seeks to draw Arab and Muslim countries into a "global coalition against terrorism".
"For those who are seeking to end the conflict in the region, they should first seek to end the occupation," he said.
Another 1,000 rallied in Ramallah to the south, where some enraged demonstrators headed to the northern edge of the city to protest against Israeli occupation soldiers.
Three Palestinians were later injured in the confrontations.
Another four were hit by Israeli fire on the periphery of the southern West Bank city of a Bethlehem as 6,000 people attended a funeral for a Palestinian killed by Israeli fire Friday.
The National and Islamic Forces, a coalition of Palestinian political and Islamic resistance groups, called for protests earlier this week to commemorate the first anniversary of the uprising.
The first anniversary of the Palestinian Intifada Friday was marked by one of the bloodiest days in the fighting, as seven Palestinians were killed and more than 70 injured by Israeli forces.
The Palestinian leadership accused Israel late Friday of "refusing" international efforts to solidify a Mideast ceasefire and returning to its military escalation in the Occupied Territories, in a statement published by the Palestinian news agency, WAFA.
"The ceasefire calls for urgent measures on the part of Israel to end its military escalation, immediately lift its military, security and economic blockade of the territories, [and] withdraw its tanks and roadblocks," said the statement after the leadership's weekly meeting here, which was chaired by Arafat.
The leadership, which also includes Palestinian lawmakers and the executive of the Palestine Liberation Organization, also accused Israel of resisting international efforts to restore calm in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"The repeated military escalation indicates a [rejection] by the Israeli government [of] the international efforts," it said.
It charged, amid Friday's violence, that Israel seeks to duck an already shaky ceasefire in place since September 18th, as well as a tentative peace accord signed by Arafat and Peres on Wednesday.
"This escalation took place in the context of a military tactic aimed at causing the failure of every agreement in the ceasefire, notably the one between Chairman Arafat and Shimon Peres," the statement said.
The Intifada erupted last September when Ariel Sharon, then opposition leader, and now prime minister, marched onto the al-Aqsa compound flanked by over a thousand Israeli police in riot gear, in an
inciteful show of force designed to impose further Israeli domination over illegally occupied East Jerusalem.
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