Palestinian refugees held sit-ins Friday in southern Lebanon to protest the "criminal" policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and to demand that he be prosecuted.
The Daily Star reported that hundreds of Palestinians marched through the streets of Sidon’s Ain Al Hilweh refugee camp, waving Hizbollah and Palestinian flags and carrying pictures of Palestinian resistance fighters.
About 100 refugees gathered in front of the offices of the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in Sidon.
“Sharon is a cancer killing the people of Palestine,” read one banner; “Where are the Arabs and the Muslims when the Palestinian people are assassinated by Sharon?” asked another. Protesters shouted “Sharon, the criminal.”
In Tyre, further south, some 500 militants of the radical Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas gathered in front of the office of the UN Interim Forces in Southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), an AFP correspondent said.
"Where are the Arabs and the Muslims when the Palestinian people is assassinated at the hands of Sharon," said a banner carried by protestors, who shouted slogans against "Sharon, the criminal."
"The Sabra and Shatilla massacres do not scare us," read another banner, referring to the 1982 massacres at two Palestinian refugee camps in an area of Beirut then controlled by Sharon, who was Israeli defense minister at the time.
A number of young men torched an Israeli flag while shouting: "Our right to return to Palestine is sacred."
A Hamas representative in Tyre presented UNIFIL with a memorandum addressed to UN chief Kofi Annan, requesting the creation of an international tribunal to try Sharon for "war crimes against the Palestinian people."
A number of demonstrations to back the Palestinian Intifada are expected to take place following noon prayers on Friday in various Lebanese regions.
On Tuesday, 132 Islamic leaders, including officials from Hamas and Hizbollah, called for demonstrations to be held Friday in the Arab and Muslim world in support of the Palestinian's latest uprising agaist 34 years of military occupation, said AFP – Albawaba.com
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