Yasser Arafat toured the West Bank city of Ramallah like a triumphant hero yesterday against a backdrop of smashed cars, trashed offices and blasted buildings after Israel lifted its siege of his headquarters.
Freed from virtual house arrest under a US-brokered deal, the Palestinian president stepped out of the gloomy compound and flashed a victory sign at hundreds of well-wishers in front of the bullet-scarred, mud-spattered offices.
PHOTO: AP
"With our blood and our souls, we will redeem you, Abu Ammar," the crowd chanted, using Arafat's nom de guerre.
Israeli troops and tanks completed their withdrawal from Ramallah before dawn.
Under the midday sun Arafat, sporting a thicker than usual growth of beard and wearing his signature olive green uniform, got into a black Mercedes to tour of the political seat of his Palestinian Authority.
The convoy had to maneuver around the carcasses of cars crushed by Israeli armor. Palestinian
policemen fanned out ahead of the convoy's route, carrying guns in public for the first time in weeks.
Surveying the trashed compound clearing, Ramallah resident Mazen Ali said he hoped Arafat would bring the 19-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation to a satisfactory end.
"I expect that he will proceed on a path that will eventually take us to an independent state," he said.
An Israeli government spokesman was less optimistic.
"Arafat is an unreconstructed terrorist who bears direct responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis. It seems he knows how to entrance the whole world with his dramas," said the spokesman, Aryeh Mekel.
The scale of the task facing Arafat in rebuilding the infrastructure became clear during his tour, which took him to government buildings ransacked by Israeli troops.
"One of these children will wave the flag over a Palestinian state," he said, pointing at scores of schoolchildren who awaited his arrival at the Education Ministry with national flags and presidential portraits in hand.
A poster of Arafat in a police station had been defaced, its eyes gouged out, presumably by an Israeli soldier. Surveying the shambles in the Palestinian Legislative Council building, Arafat muttered "unbelievable."
A solemn silence fell on the Palestinian leader and his retinue as they held an outdoor prayer service at Ramallah Government Hospital, where doctors had treated scores of casualties of the most recent clash with the Jewish state.
Arafat's defiant appearance underlined the way the Israeli siege, part of a West Bank sweep launched on March 29 after a wave of Palestinian attacks killed scores of Israelis, had bolstered Palestinian support and world sympathy.
The Palestinian National Con-gress said in a statement it would convene in Ramallah to "affirm Palestinian national goals to continue the [uprising]." The street shared this mood.
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