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For First Time In 5 Months, Arafat Tours West Bank Hotspots
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| Arafat in the Church of the Nativity
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BETHLEHEM,
West Bank, May 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat, finally freed from Israeli siege, left
Ramallah for the first time in five months Monday, May 13, to tour
West Bank towns which were hit hardest by an Israeli aggression last
month.
Arafat,
who survived a four-week siege of his West Bank headquarters, emerged
triumphant from a helicopter loaned by the Jordanian army to visit
Bethlehem, Jenin and Nablus, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
But
his return to Bethlehem was tinged with the sorrow of the hardship the
town had to endure in the past five weeks.
The
Israeli army only left Bethlehem this weekend, after a five-week siege
of Palestinians holed up in the Church of the Nativity ended in exile
for 13 Palestinian resistance fighters and deportation to Gaza for 26
others.
Around
1,000 people assembled to see Arafat arrive by limousine at the church
marking Jesus Christ's birthplace, after flying in aboard a helicopter
borrowed to replace his own fleet, destroyed in Israeli air raids on
Gaza in early December.
Arafat
inspected the inside of the church compound where more than 120
people, most of them civilians, priests or members of the security
forces, spent five weeks of hunger and desperation in the crosshairs
of Israeli army snipers.
He
met the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of the Holy See, Irineos I, and was
shown a small bullet-pocked courtyard where a Palestinian was shot
dead while picking leaves off a tree to cook after food supplies ran
out.
Arafat
also saw a pile of ashes where Palestinians had cooked their meager
rations, still not removed in the general clean-up of the church since
the siege was lifted last Friday.
He
also paid a brief visit to the grotto under the basilica, the spot
where Jesus was born, and bowed before the altar in the adjoining
Franciscan church of Saint Catherine.
"The
Church of the Nativity is our heart," said Arafat, who was
blocked from attending the traditional Christmas mass at the start of
his Ramallah house arrest, imposed by Israel.
Outside,
he emerged into the sunlight to greet the crowd again, with supporters
flashing V-for-victory signs and chanting "Abu Ammar,"
Arafat's nom de guerre.
Arafat
also visited the Mosque of Omar near the church and the city
municipality.
Bethlehem
was locked down for more than a month by the Israeli army, which
invaded it on April 2 after a spate of Palestinian bomb attacks
against Israel.
Inside
the mayor's offices, he observed a minute's silence for the eight
people who had been killed in and around the sixth-century basilica,
including both gunmen and civilians.
Palestinian
Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo sent a message to Israel,
saying "if you think your military aggression can earn you
political gains, you are mistaken. Tanks will not change our
commitment to freedom," he said.
A
group of young women waited outside the building calling on Arafat
"not to forget the church deportees," the 13 men who under
an internationally brokered deal to end the siege were sent into
exile, currently in Cyprus awaiting assignation to a final destination
in Europe.
The
72-year-old leader later flew on to the northern town of Jenin, whose
refugee camp was largely flattened in a brutal Israeli aggression
against the camp’s civilians and resistance activists in Israel's
West Bank offensive, dubbed Operation Defensive Wall.
Arafat
raged at Israel shortly after tanks and armored vehicles pulled back
from his Ramallah doorstep at the beginning of May, calling Israeli
soldiers "terrorists, Nazis and racists" for their West Bank
campaign.
"Jenin
has turned into Jeningrad, instead of Stalingrad. Remember something
like that, Stalingrad? Now, Jeningrad," Arafat said.
"It
is unacceptable for the Palestinians, for the Arabs, for the Muslims,
for the Christians, for the United Nations, for the United States and
for Russia," he also roared after a night gun battle around the
Church of the Nativity.
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