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15,000 Palestinians Bury Assassinated Hamas Men In Nablus
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| Israel assassinated the three Hamas memebrs as they slept in their beds |
NABLUS, West Bank, Jan. 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - As E.U. Foreign Policy Chief, Javier Solana, gave a downbeat assessment of the prospects for peace in the Middle East Wednesday, around 15,000 mournful Palestinians gathered in the West Bank city of Nablus to bury three senior Hamas activists assassinated by Israel Tuesday as they slept inside their home.
The fourth Hamas man assassinated in the same incident was buried in Ramallah to the south.
Men marched in front of the funeral procession while hundreds of women stood at the end of the march, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Hundreds of flags representing the two Islamic resistance movements Hamas and Jihad as well as besieged Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and other secular groups were waved, as mourners fired guns into the air and chanted religious slogans.
As the procession reached the city center, several speakers addressed the crowds, as nearby rooftops teemed with wailing women and children.
The four Hamas men were assassinated in their apartment while they slept, Palestinian sources said.
They were killed "in cold blood", said Nablus governor, Mahmud al-Allul. Palestinian security officials said three bodies had been found in their beds and a fourth in a shower.
But Israel claims the four assassinated men were allegedly manufacturing explosives.
The bodies of the three Hamas members were wrapped in the green Hamas flags, while the body of Abdel Nasser Sawafta, 27 -- a fifth Palestinian killed in the riot that followed the assassination -- was covered with a Fatah flag and his head wrapped in the traditional Palestinian headdress or kuffieh.
Relatives said he was a rank-and-file member of Fatah, the military wing of President Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA).
Sawafta was reportedly shot in the head when Palestinian police opened fire as a crowd of thousands of Hamas supporters rioted outside Nablus prison after the Israeli raid, witnesses said, AFP reported.
The furious crowd had stoned the prison, demanding the release of Hamas and Islamic Jihad prisoners being held there.
One Hamas prisoner, a brother of one of those slain in the Israeli raid, was released. But when governor Allul appeared before the crowd to suggest a committee to review the release of the others, he was pelted with stones and police opened fire.
Nizar Odeh, a member of the national unity liaison committee, said: "We are sorry for the violence that took place yesterday. Our country is in danger, which means that we must concentrate our efforts on reinforcing national unity and point our weapons towards our common Zionist enemy."
Following Israel's brutal assassinations of the four Hamas members, Hamas declared "total war" on Israel, and after prayers for the assassinated men Wednesday, a Hamas spokesman, addressing the suddenly quiet crowd, called for the PA's armed wing to resume its resistance against Israeli occupation.
Other speakers, whether from religious or secular factions, insisted on the need to preserve national unity and asked the Palestinian Authority to stop arresting political figures.
Meanwhile, E.U. foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, gave a downbeat assessment of the prospects for peace in the Middle East Wednesday, describing the situation as "very dramatic" following a meeting in Strasbourg with Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres.
"The situation today is very dramatic and we have to see how to get out of the circle of violence," Solana said in Strasbourg airport after a 45 minute with the Israeli minister.
Meanwhile, German deputy foreign minister, Ludger Vollmer, called Israel's destruction of Palestinian infrastructure "unacceptable", urging the E.U. to react to the latest brutal actions by Israeli security forces, DPA reported Wednesday in a report carried by Iran's official new agency, IRNA.
"Israel's action is not acceptable," Vollmer said, referring to the recent mass demolitions of Palestinian homes, the Gaza airport runway and the Ramallah-based radio and television station. Some of the destroyed Palestinian infrastructure like Gaza airport and the Palestinian radio and television were built with German and E.U. funds.
Vollmer called on the E.U. to take a firm stance vis-a-vis Israel's demolition policies in the occupied territories. The E.U. commission announced Tuesday, January 22, in Brussels that the Israeli destruction of Palestinian infrastructure facilities that were partially built with E.U. money, has so far caused 20 million euros in damages.
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