BEIRUT: Palestinians will march on Israel’s borders from neighboring Arab states Sunday to mark the 1967 war, a top Fatah commander said, calling on the United Nations to protect the protesters.
“We, who hope to return to our lands in Palestine, are planning a peaceful rally this Sunday” at the Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian borders with Israel as well as the Gaza Strip, Fatah commander in Lebanon Munir Maqdah told AFP.
Maqdah urged Arab states and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, a 12,000-strong peacekeeping force stationed at Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, to “ensure the protection of this peaceful gathering.”
He said a committee joining Palestinian and Lebanese factions as well as civil society groups would issue a statement in the coming days detailing the plans for Sunday’s protests, which could include setting up tents at Israel’s borders.
The 1967 war saw Israel defeat four Arab armies in six days, and saw it take over East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
It also saw the Jewish state seize the Golan Heights plateau from Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.
The announcement comes after Palestinians marched on Israel’s borders with Lebanon, Syria and Gaza on May 15 in a mass show of mourning over the 1948 creation of Israel.
Israeli troops shot dead 10 people and wounded hundreds that day as the protesters attempted to take down barbed wire at the border.
In other developments Tuesday, three Gazans were killed in a mysterious blast at a training camp used by militants of the Popular Resistance Committees near the Egyptian border, medics told AFP.
“Three martyrs were killed and four others were wounded in a blast in a site belonging to the Popular Resistance in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah,” said Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for the Hamas-run medical services in Gaza.
The cause of the blast was not immediately clear, but the Israeli military told AFP it had “nothing to do with the explosion.”
On Oct. 20, 13 Palestinians civilians were injured by an explosion of undetermined origin in a Hamas security services building in Tel Sultan.
The Israeli military said Tuesday it arrested a dozen Palestinian militants in nighttime raids in the West Bank.
It said the suspects were linked to Islamic Jihad, a small faction backed by Syria and Iran that has targeted Israeli civilians in suicide bombings and other deadly attacks. The arrests were carried out around the city of Jenin.
Troops also shut down the offices of an Islamic charity in the city. The military alleged the organization is linked to Islamic Jihad and to attempts to “harm the security of Israel’s citizens and security forces.”
There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian Authority.
Meanwhile, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza Tuesday urged Palestinians to respect Egypt’s security so that Cairo would keep open the Rafah border crossing.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh welcomed Egypt’s decision to fully reopen the crossing last week, and warned Palestinians “to refrain from any breach of Egypt’s security.”
“Don’t do anything that could compromise the reopening of the terminal,” he said. “We assure our Egyptian brothers: ‘Your security is ours and your stability is ours.’”