Last update - 00:00 11/11/2006
Thousands of Palestinians commemorate two-year anniversary of Arafat's death
By Yoav Stern and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents and The Associated Press
Thousands of Palestinians from across the West Bank streamed into the city of Ramallah on Saturday to commemorate the two year anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death.
Palestinians were bused in from across the area and dropped in the middle of the city - the Palestinians' de facto capital.
They then marched carrying Palestinian flags and pictures of Arafat to the Muqata, the compound that served as Arafat's headquarters when he was chairman of the Palestinian Authority.
Senior Palestinian officials laid wreaths at the glass shrine atop Arafat's grave inside the compound and read verses from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, while crowds of people filled the nearby courtyard. A massive picture of Arafat stood nearby.
Speaking at the ceremony, Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas said that he hoped to form a coalition government with the Islamic Hamas party by the end of the month.
Abbas' Fatah party and Hamas, which won January parliamentary elections, have been negotiating for months on forming a national unity government aimed at ending crippling international sanctions on the Palestinian Authority.
"I tell my people that we have achieved great progress on the way to forming a national unity government that can end the siege and open the horizons for political solutions that will end the occupation forever," Abbas said.
"I expect, God willing, that this government will see the light of day before the end of this month," he said.
Abbas used his speech to reiterate the Palestinians' claim for a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
"The Palestinian people will not concede any acre of its land, including Jerusalem," he said.
Abbas pledged to "maintain Arafat's will," and addressed the late leader, saying: "You inspired us by your long national roots, by your wise leadership, by your persistent, honest commitment. That's what fills us with determination to go ahead and fulfill our national goals, the national goals that you worked for."
MK Mohammed Barakeh (Ra'am-Ta'al) also spoke at the ceremony. Addressing Israelis, he said Israel's challenge is not knowing how to create sophisticated explosives or weapons, but rather to "learn how to create a good life."
"Your lives will not benefit as long as our lives are the price," Barakeh told Israelis. "The safety of your children is bound with the safety of our children."
To Palestinians, Barakeh hinted at his objection to shooting Qassam rockets into Israel, saying the "the resistance is a means of achieving a free state, not an end in itself."
MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) spoke in honor of the anniversary of Arafat's death, calling Arafat a symbol of the struggle to "free Palestine" and praising him as a leader of an entire people.
Tibi added that Arafat's current grave is a temporary one, and the leader will one day be moved to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem for burial.
Arafat died on November 11, 2004 after leading the Palestinians for nearly four decades.
After Arafat's death, his Fatah Party, which dominated Palestinian political life since the 1960s, lost a parliamentary election to the violent Islamic Hamas group, sparking an international economic boycott of the Palestinian Authority.