Refugees celebrate evacuations

From correspondents in Damascus
August 20, 2005

THOUSANDS of Palestinians at the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus celebrated the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza."Gaza is the beginning of freedom," they chanted. "It is the beginning of the road toward a state."

The demonstrators waved Palestinian and Syrian flags and carried portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

It was the second such demonstration this week at Yarmouk, which has about 150,000 inhabitants and is the biggest in Syria, the home to half a million Palestinians.

"This demonstration reflects the joy of the scattered Palestinian people over the pullout and the dismantling of the settlements," said Maher al-Taher, an official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

"It is the beginning of the recovery of our national rights, starting with the right to return and the establishment of an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital," he said

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