Saraya aL-Quds calls for protecting the resistance in the West Bank

Thursday November 22, 2007 14:54 by Rami Almeghari - IMEMC&Agencies

The Sarya aL-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group, called today for ensuring protection for the Palestinian resistance fighters in the backdrop of recent Palestinian security services' crackdown on fighters from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Al-Quds Brigades fighters/ archive photo

In a statement, faxed to press, the aL-Quds brigades warned of harming the Palestinian resistance fighters and their weapons, saying that such resistance has been found to resist the Israeli occupation.

The statement demanded the Palestinian Authority to ensure protection for the Palestinian people, by halting arrest campaigns across the West Bank, hailing, in the meantime, the PA's crackdown on gangsters, who continue destabilizing internal security.

The PA's security services have recently chased a number of Palestinians, the PA says involved in actions of internal unrest in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The PFLP, from its part, rejected the crackdown, saying those pursued were members of its armed wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades.

The latest PA's arrests came few days after U.S senior official, Dayton, visited the Nablus city, where some security arrangements have been put in place within Israeli-Palestinian agreement to implement the U.S-backed Road Map peace plan, ahead of the next week's Annapolis Middle East peace summit, sponsored by Washington.

The road map, formulated in 2002, stipulates that Palestinians and Israelis initially take reciprocal steps, including Israeli halt of Jewish settlements building, in return for Palestinian Authority dismantling of armed resistance groups.

Palestinians consider the resistance a 'legitimate right', as long as the Israeli occupation of West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem continues. Israel keeps hundreds of settlements on the occupied West Bank lands, despite the fact that these settlements are branded 'illegal' by international law.

west bank | internal unrest | news report rami at imemc dot org