RAMALLAH – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that Israel was deliberately seeking to stoke unrest in the occupied West Bank but that Palestinians would not be provoked. “The Israelis want chaos and we know it but we won't let them,” Abbas said in comments at his West Bank headquarters, seemingly in response to an Israeli demand Sunday that he calm a wave of protest in the territory. “We want peace and freedom for our prisoners and no matter how hard they try to drag us into their schemes, we will not be dragged,” he said. Protests in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli prisons have been building and gained new momentum with the sudden death in his cell Saturday of 30-year-old Arafat Jaradat, a former militant of Abbas's Fatah movement. Palestinian officials accuse Israel of torturing him to death. “We lost Arafat Jaradat who was arrested and came back in a coffin and this cannot pass lightly,” Abbas said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Sunday that “Israel passed an unequivocal demand to the Palestinian Authority to calm down the (West Bank) territory.” Masked Palestinian gunmen fired in the air Monday as thousands marched at the West Bank funeral of a prisoner whose death in an Israeli jail has raised fears in Israel of a new uprising. The sounds and fury were reminiscent of the seven-year Intifada, or uprising, that started in 2000 after Israeli-Palestinian peace talks failed. Israeli Homeland Minister Avi Dichter cautioned that another uprising could begin if confrontations with Palestinian protesters turned deadly. The Israeli military said dozens of Palestinians had thrown stones at soldiers in various parts of the West Bank on Monday. Troops responded with tear gas and stun grenades, and no serious injuries were reported. “The previous two Intifadas ... came about as a result of a high number of dead (during protests),” Dichter told Israel Radio. “Fatalities are almost a proven recipe for a sharper escalation.” Palestinian frustration has been fuelled by Israel's settlement expansion in the West Bank, a peace process in limbo since 2010. “We have no choice but to continue the popular resistance and escalate it in the face of the occupation, whether it be the army or the settlers,” Mahmoud Aloul, a senior member of Abbas's Fatah movement, told Reuters. In Se'eer, local merchant Abu Issa, 45, said he was unsure whether what he described as Palestinian opposition to Israeli occupation would lead to an uprising. “One day the Palestinian people will take a stand, but I don't know if that day is today,” he said. Palestinians have rallied to the cause of the four hunger-strikers, two of whom are being held without trial. – Agencies
