Fatah official reiterates party's commitment to the rifle

Headline: “Fatah’s Nablus [branch] commemorated the anniversary of the Martyrdom of the founder and symbol Yasser Arafat”
“Fatah Central Committee member Azzam Al-Ahmad stated that the Fatah movement continues to realize the Palestinian national interest, and called on the Hamas movement to distance itself from anything that delays the reconciliation.
This was stated during the Flag and Keffiyeh Carnival, held yesterday [Nov. 16, 2015] by the Fatah movement in Nablus, with the participation of governmental, national and civil institutions, for the commemoration of the anniversary of leader Yasser Arafat’s Martyrdom…
Moreover, Al-Ahmad referred to the popular uprising and welcomed it, and emphasized that it came as a natural response to the escalating crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people…
In the same context, the movement organized a central mourning rally to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Martyr Yasser Arafat, and the declaration of the [Palestinian] document of independence in the village of Beit Furik, in the presence of Fatah Central Committee member Mahmoud Al-Aloul…
Al-Aloul emphasized that the movement continues on the path of the Palestinian revolution, outlined by Martyr Yasser Arafat and his comrades, and that the rebel’s rifle has not fallen and will not fall, as long as there is an occupation that lies over the land of the homeland.
Al-Aloul clarified that the leadership does not trust the American mediator, who shows, day after day, that it is biased in favor of the occupation state and stands by the abusive occupation at the expense of the oppressed Palestinian people, the victim of the Israeli war and terror mechanism. He also described the US as a ‘pest.’”

Palestinian declaration of independence - On Nov. 15, 1988, before the Palestine National Council (PNC), the Palestinian parliament in exile in Algeria, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Arafat declared the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Although the borders were not specified in the declaration, it recognized the UN partition plan of 1947, which called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the former British Mandate for Palestine.