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Fatah urges "popular resistance" against Israel instead of escalation

Xinhua, October 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

Fatah party's central committee on Wednesday called upon Palestinians to maintain the "popular form of resistance" during their confrontations with the Israeli army forces in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The Fatah central committee said in a statement that the party merges with Palestinians in "defending themselves and their holy sites, lands, homes, and farms and calls upon them to keep the popular resistance which falls under a national comprehensive strategy, and not to slide into the Israeli cycle of violence."

President Mahmoud Abbas, also head of Fatah, presided the committee's meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah and he "briefed the committee of the latest communications he had with the Arab, regional and international parties to provide international protection to the Palestinians who are being subjected to an Israeli attack," spokesman for the Palestinian presidency Nabil Abu Rudeineh said.

He added that Abbas had conveyed his request for an international protection to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Abu Rudeineh said that the Palestinians are to ask the UN Security Council for an end of settlement building, and recognition of Palestine as a full-member state.

Abbas said on Tuesday that the Palestinians do not want a military and security escalation with Israel.

During his meeting with the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Abbas demanded Israel to stop its escalation.

Tension heightened between the Palestinians and Israel's army and settlers following the death of two Israeli settlers in a shooting ambush near the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday. Two others were stabbed to death in east Jerusalem.

In return, the Israeli army killed six Palestinians, saying that three of them were killed after conducting stabbing attacks. The other three, including a 13-year-old child, were killed during the clashes in the West Bank that left more than 500 others wounded.

The latest round of violence was ignited in mid September when Palestinians strongly protested allowing Jewish groups to enter al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem almost daily during the Jewish holidays.

Internally, Fatah called upon Islamic Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip since 2007, to immediately accept forming a unity government based on the PLO's program in order to call for general elections.

Meanwhile, Fatah urged Hamas to "respond" to the PLO delegation that will head to Gaza. PLO executive committee member Ahmed Majdalani told Xinhua that the committee has decided to send the delegation to Gaza soon to conduct "dialogue" with Hamas.

Majdalani said that the discussions would mainly focus on two issues: forming a unity government and preparing for general legislative and presidential elections. Endit