Tens of thousands of Palestinians swarmed into the centre of Gaza City today to mark the 38th anniversary of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement's first guerrilla attacks on Israel.
Mr Arafat himself was to address the crowd of around 30,000 supporters outside the legislative council buildings by live broadcast from Ramallah in the West Bank, where he has been cooped up by Israeli forces for more than a year.
Hundreds of armed men gathered at the front of the group, including masked gunmen from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Fatah that has claimed dozens of bloody attacks on Israel, and whose members vowed today to carry out more.
The traditional celebrations mark the first armed attack by Fatah guerrillas on Israel's National Water Carrier on January 1st, 1965.
AFP