Gus. This should cheer you up a bit, to be talking this tough must mean that the arab/palestinians have just received a fresh supply of stones for the children.
Islamic Jihad threatens to attack if Arafat siege not lifted.
January 20, 2002, 03:17 PM
GAZA CITY (AFP) - An official from the hardline Palestinian group Islamic Jihad threatened a renewal of attacks on Israel if it does not withdraw tanks from outside Yasser Arafat's offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
"Islamic Jihad's armed wing, the Al-Qods Battalion, will react against the continued Israeli attacks, especially the siege of Yasser Arafat. Islamic Jihad will not stay with its hands tied," the Gaza official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
"There will probably be an answer from the Al-Qods Battalion to the destruction of houses in Rafah, the assassinations and to the siege of Arafat," said the official from the political branch of the movement.
He was referring to the destruction of dozens of Palestinian homes in the Gaza town of Rafah that the Israeli army said were used for smuggling arms across the Egyptian border and the death of Palestinian militant Raed al-Karmi, killed in a blast last week widely seen as an Israeli hit.
The Damascus-based branch of the Islamic group said last week that it and larger rival Hamas would resume attacks after the arrest of Ahmed Saadat, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine chief arrested by the Palestinian Authority.
Israel has told Arafat he can not leave Ramallah until he arrests not only Saadat but also the actual gunmen who assassinated an Israeli minister in October in revenge for the Israeli killing of Saadat's predecessor.
Islamic Jihad told the Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera on January 10 it was "not bound by any agreement or cooperation with the Palestinian Authority as far as the ceasefire with Israel is concerned," seen as a repudiation of Arafat's truce appeal more than a month ago.
But Sunday's statement was the first time a Gaza-based official had issued such a warning.
Meanwhile Sunday a PLO faction called for Palestinian groups to launch suicide attacks on the Israeli army and for the people of the occupied territories to form human shields against the "crimes" of Israel.
The National Resistance Brigades, armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), called for "all branches of the national movement to close ranks".
"We must launch large-scale suicide operations against the tanks and forces of the enemy surrounding Ramallah, Tulkarem and other Palestinian towns," the DFLP said in a statement received by AFP in the Syrian capital.
"Our resistance fighters are on the field of battle and we call upon the people to go out into the streets to form human shields and take part in the resistance and the uprising," the secular group said.
The DFLP warned that "the enemy will pay a heavy price for the crimes which it is committing daily against our people, institutions and Palestinian radio and television."
The Damascus-based group of Nayef Hawatmeh is one of the three main factions of the PLO, alongside Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
It rejected a call from Arafat on December 16 for a halt to all attacks on the Jewish state.
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