http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369045
*Security forces raid Gaza protest* Published today (updated) 15/03/2011 22:23 [image: Font-] [image: Font+] GAZA CITY (Maan) -- Security forces forcefully dispersed protesters from a square in central Gaza City late Tuesday, witnesses said. Protesters in Gaza said security forces set up hundreds of barriers around the main square of demonstrations and were patrolling the area. They beat people with batons and set fire to tents that were set up by the demonstrators, according to activists in Gaza City. The March 15 Coalition said hundreds of Hamas security forces stormed the protests and tried to evacuate it by force. A Palestinian government official, Raed Fattouh, said he was attacked in front of his house, which is near the Katiba square. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemned the attacks, saying they were directed against peaceful protesters. In Ramallah, protesters and security forces clashed as the Palestinian Authority sought to gain control of demonstrations calling for an end to rivalry in the occupied territories. At least 20 people have been injured by security forces in the main square, and six were taken away in ambulances, our correspondent reported from the scene. The biggest gathering was in Gaza City, where officials from the Hamas-run interior ministry said vast crowds had packed into the city's Square of the Unknown Soldier. As the protesters demanded that the rival Hamas and Fatah movements patch up their differences, Gaza's Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh publicly invited his Fatah rival, Mahmoud Abbas, for immediate unity talks in Gaza. "I invite the president, brother Abu Mazen (Abbas), and Fatah to an immediate meeting here in Gaza ... to start national dialogue in order to achieve reconciliation," Haniya said in a live broadcast after an emergency meeting of his government. And Abbas proposed holding elections "as soon as possible" in order to end the division. "I am with the people and in favour of going back to the people to put an end to the divisions through presidential and parliamentary elections," he said after talks in Ramallah with Cypriot President Demetris Christofias. "No to division!" screamed demonstrators in Gaza City under a sea of red, white, black and green Palestinian flags. "Revolution, revolution until we end the division!" But the Gaza protests were marred by clashes between dozens of Hamas supporters and hundreds of others in which stones were thrown and three people wounded, witnesses said. As more and more people packed into the square, disputes could be seen breaking out, an AFP correspondent said, with Fatah cadres locking horns with Hamas activists who were carrying their own green flags and shouting political slogans. Also, several thousand left the main square to continue their protests at a nearby site to protest Hamas and other political groups co-opting the movement, one of the organisers said. The rallies, called by the March 15 protest movement, were planned through Facebook by young activists demanding an end to the rift. Throughout the day, around 7,000 people demonstrated in the West Bank, with around 3,000 in Ramallah, 2,000 in the northern city of Nablus and similar numbers in Hebron, reporters said. "I'm not from Fatah or from Hamas. I came here with my friends to say enough of this division," said a 24-year-old student demonstrating in Nablus, who gave his name only as Sayed. "We will stay here until the end of the split," he said. In Ramallah, demonstrators sang patriotic songs and waved Palestinian flags, but the protest was also plagued with confrontations between supporters of different political groups, marring organisers' attempts to keep the movement apolitical. One student said there would be no unity unless the politicians decided to give up their entrenched positions. "We as youth should participate in this event to make a big change, but we also can't stop the division if the politicians don't change," said Sama Musa. Khalida Jarrar, a Palestinian lawmaker and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that "security forces shouldn't be among protesters." "The youth have a very strong slogan. They want elections for the Palestinian National Council. This is really important, I support this. It's the only thing that can unite Palestinians inside and outside." The rivalry between Hamas and Fatah dates back to the early 1990s. It soured dramatically after the Islamist movement won elections in 2006 and, a year later, seized control of Gaza after deadly street fighting with Fatah. Since then, the Palestinian territories have been effectively split in two, with Abbas's rule confined to the West Bank. In Manara Square, a huge banner was plastered with the faces of dead Palestinians from all the factions, including Yasser Arafat and Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, emblazoned with the slogan: "End the division!" The March 15 movement was inspired by a wave of uprisings in the Arab world that has brought down the regimes of Egypt and Tunisia and sparked the revolt in Libya and other Arab countries. ------------------ Comrade Sa'adat calls for broadest participation in March 15 demonstrations to end division and Oslo [image: FirefoxScreenSnapz126.jpg] <http://pflp.ps/english/?q=node/2558> French translation<http://www.pflp.ps/english/?q=le-camarade-saadat-appelle-la-plus-large-participa>- Comrade Ahmad Sa'adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called from isolation in Israeli prison for all of the Palestinian people, in the homeland and in exile and diaspora, the Palestinian national movement, and Palestinian youth, to actively participate in the rallies on March 15, 2011, under the slogan of ending division and fragmentation in Palestine, and the overthrow of Oslo and its results, in order to unite to confront the occupation, said his wife. Comrade Abla Sa'adat (Umm Ghassan) said that her husband expressed his sincere greetings for all of the efforts led by Palestinian youth, and affirmed that all prisoners in the jails of the occupier are with them, support their movement and their demands. Furthermore, she reported that he said that "the masses of our people are more convinced now than ever of their ability to take the lead of our movement in their hands and pressure for change, end the division, stop corruption, and end the Oslo agreement, which is responsible for Jericho prison [where he was held in a Palestinian Authority prison under American and British guard since 2002, until the Israeli occupation forces kidnapped him and four of his comrades on March 14, 2006], as only one of its many dire consequences for the Palestinian people." --------------------------- Thousands of Palestinians rally for reconciliation Published today (updated) 15/03/2011 21:03 [image: Font-] [image: Font+] *click for more photos of Gaza City protests *[MaanImages] BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Thousands of pro-unity protesters in Gaza City changed locations Monday, when a Hamas-organized rally arrived at the scene dampening calls for non-factional Palestinian unity. A much smaller protest in Ramallah, with estimates of a few thousand, gathered in a main circle in tandem with Gaza calling for an end to political division, which fissured that Palestinian leadership in 2007. By early evening in Ramallah, plainclothes agitators had gathered around protesters in an apparent attempt at intimidation, prompting demonstrators to turn the event into a sit-in, lighting hundreds of candles, and singing songs for unity. Organizers of the March 15 movement, a loose coalition of groups in the West Bank and Gaza, have called for the protests to remain focused on unity. The aim of the demonstration, they say, is the end of Palestinian political division through elections that include all Palestinians. >From the first organizing attempts, youth groups said they feared the protests would be hijacked by political parties seeking to blame their rivals for the failure to achieve unity, all efforts were being made to keep factions out. Speaking by phone from the protest one man, who asked not to be identified, said about 200 Hamas members carrying flags and chanting Hamas slogans entered the square shortly before 11:30 a.m. He said two demonstrators were show with Taser guns and fainted as they shouted demanding the removal of all politically affiliated paraphernalia from the area. Ahead of the marches, organizers insisted that only the Palestinian flag be flown at the events. "Despite the Gaza governments instructions to treat the demonstrators respectfully and not intervene, some hardliners tried to use the demonstration for factional gains," one protester told Ma'an. He called on Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza to "stick to the promises he made yesterday." Organizer Hossam Khadra told AFP they had finally received a permit to demonstrate after previously being refused. When the Hamas contingent arrived, one protester remarked on Twitter, "we r leaving ths isnt what we wanted ths prot to b." Shortly after, the mass of people left the square for another location in the city. *Reports of limited political antagonism in Ramallah * In Ramallah, 3,000 gathered the Manara Circle, with early reports of Palestinian Authority security presence and some Fatah flags being raised. By evening the numbers dwindled to about 1,000. Ma'an's correspondent described Palestinian Authority security services staying at the sidelines and for the most part just observing. A group of about a dozen agitators were reported by organizers, and seen burning an American flag and even US dollars. Witnesses said the group was with the PA and nominally aligned with Fatah, but organizers were quick to point out that hundreds of Fatah members were out protesting alongside unity activists, and calling for an end to division. The agitators were wearing plain cloths and had started some clashes with protesters, setting up a large banner with a photo of US President Barack Obama, saying: "Obama said freedom for Tunisian people, freedom for Libyan people, freedom for the Egyptian people but never freedom for the Palestinian people." Organizers of the event said they feared the agitators were trying to make the protest appear anti-American, and when members of the group burned dollar bills and shouted anti-American slogans, protesters began shouting in unison, "Free Palestine! Free Palestine!" and drowned out the men. Protesters had been fighting hijacking attempts all day, with Fatah and the Ramallah Prisoners Center both setting up loudspeakers at opposite ends of Manara shouting out slogans those present at the rally said had little to do with their mission. "They bought whistles and distributed them to protesters, and whenever they started yelling inappropriate slogans, we drowned them out," one witness said. *Governments promise to protect rallies * Palestinian factions, including the major rivals Hamas and Fatah, had pledged to protect pro-unity rallies both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Officials said they supported the rallies under their banner, "The people want to end the division." On Monday, Gaza government Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Al-Ghussein said officials met and agreed that demonstrating youth would be respected and protected, ahead of the protests. "We have been closely following the popular movement in Gaza," Al-Ghussein said in a news conference from the site of the planned protests, the Square of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City. 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