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Protests over Sharon break out across Arab world |
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October 1, 2000
SIDON, Lebanon (AP) - Young Palestinians burned effigies of Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon in a Lebanese refugee camp in one of a number of demonstrations across the Arab world Saturday over the current Israeli-Palestinian riots that have claimed six lives. Some 1,000 youths carrying Palestinian flags marched through Ein El-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest refugee camp, shouting: "We live for Palestine! We die for Palestine!" About 40 Palestinian guerrillas armed with AK-47 assault rifles trampled on the Israeli flag during the demonstration. Some protesters carried pictures of the Al-Aqsa mosque, one of two Islamic shrines in the Jerusalem compound known to Arabs as Haram as-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount. It was a visit to the compound Thursday by Israel's hawkish opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, that triggered three days of rioting in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Sharon said his motive was to demonstrate Israeli control over the enclosure. Arabs see the compound as the third holiest site in the Islamic world and Palestinians view that section of Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Israel captured the compound, and the rest of east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. In Beirut, Lebanese Prime Minister Selim Hoss praised the riots in "Occupied Palestine" and called on world nations to "work for an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression against Arab Jerusalem." In Amman on Saturday, the Jordanian Council of Unions called for a popular trial for Sharon, calling him a criminal. "Contacts are underway with political parties, civil institutions and popular forces to hold a popular trial for the terrorist Sharon," council spokesman Saleh Armouti told reporters. The council groups 13 professional associations that are dominated by Muslim fundamentalists and leftists opposed to peace with Israel. Armouti said the unions were planning several rallies to underline the plight of Palestinians, including an Oct. 24 protest at the Allenby Bridge on the Jordan River which separates the kingdom from the West Bank. At least 500,000 Jordanian political activists, as well as Palestinian refugees who were displaced in the 1948 and 1967 Middle East wars, are expected to take place in the rally, dubbed "the journey to return home," he said. In Alexandria, Egypt, some 5, 000 students staged noisy demonstrations on the various campuses in the Mediterranean port city, police officials said on condition on anonymity. Waleed Mohamed, an engineering student and member of the Muslim Brotherhood, said he took part because of his "extreme pain and grief" over the "massacre" in Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories. The protesters carried banners reading "Jerusalem is Islamic" and called for holy war, Mohammed said. In Lebanon's 13 refugee camps, Palestinians observed a general strike and day of mourning for the riots victims. Shops and schools were also closed. Some 400,000 Palestinians live in the Lebanese refugee camps. |