RAMALLAH,
West Bank, September 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) -
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Sunday, September 29, that
Israel’s withdrawal from his ruined headquarters does not comply
with a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an end to the
siege.
“They
haven’t withdrawn - they have redeployed and are still several
meters around the compound,” he told reporters inside his damaged
offices, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“This
is not implementation of the Security Council resolution 1435, it is
playing around with international opinion,” he said, looking tired
and pale.
“The
Israelis must withdraw immediately from not only the compound but all
the Palestinian cities,” he said, looking pale after his ordeal.
Commenting
on the fate of the 41 Palestinians Israel said Sunday it wanted for
their alleged “terrorist” links, Arafat stressed he would not turn
them over to the Israeli authorities.
“We
didn’t surrender anybody and we will not do so in future,” he
said.
After
10 days cooped up in three rooms with more than 200 other men, the
unshaven Palestinian President looked scruffier than usual, but smiled
and laughed with reporters as a table collapsed under the weight of an
overeager photographer.
After
the Israeli tanks, troops and bulldozers withdrew, men swarmed out of
the headquarters building where they had been trapped for 10 days by
tanks, embracing each other with joy although Israeli troops remained
close by.
Many
of the armed security guards went to search the severely damaged
interior ministry building next to Arafat’s offices, looking for
their belongings in the rubble.
A
security officer trapped with Arafat said the 250 men inside his
headquarters building had received orders not to leave the surrounding
compound even if the Israelis pulled back.
But
national security forces member, Yusef al-Masri, 24, said, “We’ve
been told we can go home.”
“I’m
really happy to be out, but I’d do it all again if there was another
siege.”
Arafat
was hoisted on the shoulders of his bodyguards and blew kisses to a
waiting crowd of about 300 Sunday as he left the remains of his
battered offices for the first time in 10 days.
Smiling
broadly, he raised his hands showing the ‘v’ for victory as the
guards paraded him around the remains of his wrecked compound, an AFP
correspondent at the scene said.
Shortly
afterwards, the 73-year-old Palestinian leader returned inside his
office building.
Ambulances
arrived to ferry away the sick, while locals turned out to inspect the
damage caused by the Israeli troops, who destroyed virtually every
building in the complex, or Muqataa, except Arafat’s own.
U.N.
special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen was quick to arrive at the scene and
went into immediate talks with Arafat inside the Palestinian
leader’s battered offices.
Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government had previously said it
would not lift its siege - which was imposed after two resistance
bombings in Israel - until a number of wanted men inside the building
gave themselves up.
However,
the Jewish state’s open flouting of the U.N. resolution 1435 angered
its major ally Washington, which is piling on pressure on Iraq and
using Baghdad’s past violation of U.N. resolutions as a stick to
beat President Saddam Hussein.
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“This is not
implementation of the Security Council resolution 1435, it is
playing around with international opinion.”
|
Israeli
public radio said Sharon had told his ministers at a weekly cabinet
meeting that the move was aimed at easing the situation for the United
States as it builds an anti-Iraqi consensus.
The
decision appeared to be a bid by Israel to step back without losing
face and backing down from its earlier hard-line stance.
Despite
the tanks lifting the immediate siege of the Muqataa, Israeli forces
remained close to the wrecked complex to prevent the 41 wanted men
holed up inside from escaping.
Senior
Arafat adviser Nabil Abu Rudeina said the Israeli decision was no more
than a trick to sidestep the U.N. resolution, whose violation has
brought widespread criticism.
“This
announcement is a farce and a fraud, by which Israel hopes to get
round the application of Security Council resolution 1435,” Nabil
Abu Rudeina told AFP.
Abu
Rudeina said the U.N. should work to ensure that Israel implements the
resolution in its entirety, namely “halt immediately the measures it
has taken around Ramallah, in particular the destruction of the
Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure.”
Yasser
Abed Rabbo, another close associate of Arafat, also said the
withdrawal was a sham.
“We
believe that this is not a real withdrawal,” he said, arguing it was
an Israeli ploy to get out of implementing the U.N. resolution.
“They
have turned the office of president Arafat into a cell, and now they
withdraw from around the cell and keep the siege around the prison.
This is not withdrawal,” he added
