WEST BANK: YASSER ARAFAT ASKS FOR FORGIVENESS AT NABLUS UNIVERSITY WHERE POLICE STORMED HAMAS MEETING
Record ID:
566085
WEST BANK: YASSER ARAFAT ASKS FOR FORGIVENESS AT NABLUS UNIVERSITY WHERE POLICE STORMED HAMAS MEETING
- Title: WEST BANK: YASSER ARAFAT ASKS FOR FORGIVENESS AT NABLUS UNIVERSITY WHERE POLICE STORMED HAMAS MEETING
- Date: 5th April 1996
- Summary: NABLUS, WEST BANK (APRIL 4-5, 1996) RTV - ACCESS ALL (APRIL 4, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT YASSER ARAFAT'S HELICOPTER LANDING 0.12 2. SV PALESTINIAN SECURITY MEN AWAITING ARRIVAL 0.13 3. SV ARAFAT DESCENDING FROM HELICOPTER 0.20 4. SLV ARAFAT, SURROUNDED BY SECURITY, WAVING TO CROWD 0.28 NABLUS, WEST BANK (APRIL 5, 1996)(RTV - ACCESS ALL) 5. SV EXTERIOR AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY 0.31 6. SV ARAFAT'S CAR ARRIVING 0.49 7. SV ARAFAT ENTERS AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY CAMPUS SURROUNDED BY PALESTINIAN SECURITY/ ARAFAT WALKING ONTO STAGE TO ADDRESS STUDENTS 1.07 8. SV ARAFAT SENDING KISSES 1.12 9. SLV ARAFAT WAVING TO CROWD/ CROWD CHEERING 1.18 10. SV ARAFAT SALUTING AS ANTHEM IS PLAYED 1.24 11. SV PALESTINIAN FLAGS 1.30 12. MCU ARAFAT ADDRESSING CROWD AND CHANTING WITH CROWD (ARABIC) 2.12 13. SV ARAFAT EMBRACING STUDENTS 2.17 JERUSALEM (APRIL 5, 1996)(RTV - ACCESS ALL) 14. CU HAMAS LEAFLET IN WHICH THE IZZ EL-DEEN AL-QASSAM BRIGADE WROTE THAT THEY REJECT ANY DIALOGUE WITH THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY 2.30 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
- Embargoed: 20th April 1996 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NABLUS, WEST BANK
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA5QGUMU8FMAO8PENQ3UBH45ROI
- Story Text: INTRO: Palestinian President Yasser Arafat asked for forgivness on Friday at Nablus University where his police force stormed in last Saturday to break-up a Hamas meeting.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Hamas students shook hands and kissed on Friday (April 5), agreeing to forgive and forget a raid by Arafat's police on a Moslem protest meeting at a West Bank university.
Hundreds of police stormed an-Najah, the biggest West Bank university, firing bullets and teargas to break up the meeting organised by the Islamic group last Saturday and attended by hundreds of students.
Hospitals treated three people for teargas inhalation.
The raid on the university was the latest crackdown on Hamas since the group's militants claimed responsibility for killing 58 people in suicide bombings in Israel about a month ago.
"We all make mistakes, brothers and sisters, and I hope you will forget what happened. It was a mistake and I ask you to forget it," Arafat told hundreds of Palestinians in Nablus in the same university courtyard stormed last week.
After Arafat's speech, members of the Hamas-controlled student council climbed to the podium to embrace him,announcing they had accepted his apology. They and the Palestinian leader kissed and shook hands.
On Wednesday, Arafat announced that the chief of police in Nablus would be transferred to Gaza for disciplinary measures.
Arafat, based in the self-ruled Gaza Strip and keen to shore up support elsewhere, plans also to settle in the West Bank for two months when he returns from a Saudi Arabia trip beginning on Sunday, Palestinian sources said.
A senior PLO official said Arafat wanted to try to defuse tensions in the West Bank and make the point that it and Gaza were a single geographical unit. West Bank residents had complained that Arafat was ignoring them.
Hamas organised last Saturday's meeting in protest at the police arrest earlier of hundreds of Islamic activists.
Arafat's own PLO faction -- Fatah -- condemned the raid and its activists clashed with police. An-Najah has 7,000 students.
Addressing the crowd of hundreds at the university, Arafat said: "There is one point I want to be clear about: We, in the National (self-rule) Authority, respect the sanctity of universities. Maybe mistakes have taken place here or there, but if you don't accept our mistakes, who will?" Arafat was due to attend Friday prayers in the city.
Earlier on Friday (April 5) the military wing of the Islamic group Hamas rejected an initiative by Palestinian mediators to broker a dialogue between Hamas and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
In a leaflet faxed to an international news agency the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades wrote that they "reject any dialogue of any sort with Arafat's Authority until a number of conditions are met." In the leaflet Hamas said the Palestinian Authority would have to end its crackdown on Hamas and Islamic Jihad, free the hundreds of Islamic activists arrested during the clampdown and punish security officials involved in the action.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None