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Ramallah:
Palestinians fired in the air, whistled and embraced each other in
the West Bank and Gaza on Thursday after the General Assembly
voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member state.
As the votes were cast, there was silence among the thousands
gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which erupted with
cheers of joy and chants of "God is greatest" when the 138-9
approval was announced.
“I’m happy they declared the state even though it's only a moral
victory. There are a lot of sharks out there, but it feels good,”
39-year-old Rashid al-Kor told AFP.
Nearby, Palestinian-American Laila Jaman was waving a handful of
Palestinian flags and carrying a picture of U.S. President Barack
Obama and Palestinan president Mahmud Abbas.
“I feel so good, I cannot describe my feelings, it’s as if we
reached the end of a dark tunnel. With a Palestinian state we are
now united as a people and a leadership,” she said breathlessly.
There were celebrations in cities across the West Bank, as well as
in Gaza, where the Hamas government offered tepid support for the
bid and allowed backers to express their solidarity with the move.
In Bethlehem, fireworks were shot into the night sky, and churches
rang their bells at midnight to mark the occasion.
Exactly 65 years ago, on Nov 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly
passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned
between Arabs and Jews, allowing for the formation of the Jewish
state of Israel in 1948.
The Palestinians rejected that partition plan, and decades of
tension and violence have followed.
The Palestinians demand the establishment of a Palestinian state
in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the territories
captured by Israel in the 1967 war, as a precondition for peace
talks with Tel Aviv.
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