Palestinians rally in West Bank to celebrate statehood recognition

RAMALLAH (Palestinian Territories): Crowds of people rallied in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, waving flags and holding posters of president Mahmud Abbas to celebrate the wave of recognition by Western powers of a Palestinian state.

Nationalist slogans blared from loudspeakers across the central square in the city of Ramallah, where a crowd of more than 100 clutched Palestinian and European flags alongside signs reading “stop the genocide”.

High-ranking officials from Abbas’s political movement, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority — which exerts limited control in the West Bank — shook hands and smiled.

“This recognition is a first step in a process that we hope will continue,” Jibril Rajoub, secretary-general of Fatah’s central committee, told AFP.

“It is the result of more than a century of resistance and determination by our people.”

Rajoub said he had felt moved listening to the speeches made at the UN General Assembly in New York the night before.

“We must learn from the past and unite the people,” he said.

Maysoon Mahmud, 39, who is also a Fatah member, said: “We came here today to thank the countries that have recognised Palestine, but also to ask them to continue to support us in stopping the war.”

“It is time for the world to take responsibility,” she added.

Further north in Tulkarem, dozens more gathered, holding the flags of countries that now recognise a Palestinian state.

A majority of European powers now recognise a Palestinian state, following official declarations on Monday by France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta and others, after nearly two years of war in Gaza and soaring violence in the West Bank.

A day earlier Britain, Australia, Canada and Portugal also took the step.

But many Palestinians interviewed by AFP expressed ambivalence at the move due to the bitter reality of the situation on the ground.

Roula Ghaneb, an academic from Tulkarem, stood impassively in the middle of the Ramallah rally, holding a photo of her 20-year-old son, Yazan.