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Ein al-Hellhole up in arms over Arafat's death
Palestinians in Lebanon's refugee camps met news of President Yasser Arafat's death on Thursday with volleys of gunfire and wails of grief. As word of Arafat's death spread, thousands of Palestinians rushed into the narrow streets of the Ein el-Hilweh camp in south Lebanon, while gunmen loyal to his Fatah faction fired their rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in the air. Ein el-Hilweh is one of a dozen camps in which 350,000 Palestinians are registered as refugees in Lebanon, where Arafat's fighters were a main faction in the civil war that erupted in 1975. "I never knew a father, I knew Abu Ammar (Arafat)," said Johaina Okasha, a refugee from Ein el-Hilweh in her 40s. "He was the one we counted on, and now he is gone."Witnesses said at least one person was injured by bursts of gunfire booming through the camp. Gunfire rang out in Beirut's Burj al-Barajneh and Sabra and Shatila camps, and residents of the southern Burj al-Shamali camp raised black banners and marched through the streets carrying Arafat's photograph. The Koran blared from loudspeakers across Ain el-Hilweh and plumes of black smoke rose from heaps of tyres set on fire in the streets and mourners marching through the camp chanted: "Abu Ammar (Arafat), where are you?" Women clad in black garments of mourning crowded the streets of camps from Rashidiyeh in south Lebanon to Baddawi near the northern city of Tripoli, and "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") boomed from the loudspeakers of mosques. One Arafat gunman said the death of the man synonymous with the Palestinian cause dealt a blow to the hopes that refugees in Lebanon have of returning to homes lost with the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. "Abu Ammar was our father, he was everything to us," said Nabil Abdel Salam, a Fatah militiaman in Ain el-Hilweh. "All hope is gone." Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-11-11 |
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