Heavy Security Surrounds Abbas During Gaza Visit

Heavy Security Surrounds Abbas During Gaza Visit

Reuters
Date: 12-31-04

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Palestinians pledged support to front-running presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas on Friday as he made his first visit to Gaza since the start of a campaign to succeed Yasser Arafat (news - web sites).

Heavy security accompanied Abbas on the visit. Recent violence poses a particular challenge to the U.S.-backed moderate leader, who is widely expected to win a Jan 9 election and favors ending armed struggle for a state.

Repeating known stances of the late president, whom he called a "martyr," Abbas called on Israel to release Palestinian prisoners and quit occupied land. He vowed Palestinians would establish a state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

"We miss Yasser Arafat's body today but his soul is with us and as he said: the day will come when a Palestinian boy or a girl will hold the Palestinian flag over the minarets, the churches and the walls of Jerusalem," he told a cheering crowd.

Supporters waved Palestinian flags and posters of Abbas and Arafat as gunmen from the Fatah (news - web sites)-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fired rifles in the air in celebration.

But a spokesman for the militant group Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction and plans to boycott the vote, criticized Abbas for wanting to end violence against Israelis.

"The enemy does not believe in peace nor in the statements of Abu Mazen," he said, using his nom de guerre. "The Palestinian leadership is required to stand beside their people and to defend them by all means available."

An al-Aqsa Brigades spokesman voiced support for Abu Mazen -- Fatah's candidate -- but said an end to attacks against Israeli targets depended on "a total end to all Israeli aggression, killings and raids."

Violence in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) has escalated ahead of a planned Israeli pullout from the territory by the end of 2005.

The army killed two Palestinian militants in Gaza on Friday, the second day of an operation aimed at stopping daily mortar and rocket attacks against Israelis. Two rockets landed in southern Israel on Friday.

Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians, seven of them militants, in Gaza on Thursday.

"We will seek to end the suffering of our people," Abbas told tens of thousands of cheering supporters.

Abbas narrowly escaped injury last month in Gaza after a gunbattle erupted between his security men and militants opposed to him, killing two policemen.

Source

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