Скачать или смотреть French activists rally outside Orient House

(18 Aug 2001)

1. Orient House area
2. Demonstrators outside
3. Demonstrators with banners
4. Israeli border police watching
5. French singing "free Orient House"
6. More soldiers on guard
7. More of street demonstration

STORYLINE:

A group of French citizens from the lobby organisation "Protection for the Palestinians" demonstrated outside Orient House on Saturday.

The building, the unofficial headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, remains under Israeli control.

Carrying flags and banners, the French sang "Free Orient House" and called for Israeli soldiers to withdraw and return control of the building to the PA.

The Orient House serves as the unofficial Palestinian headquarters and is a symbol of Palestinian claims to Arab east Jerusalem as a future capital.

Israel seized the compound in response to a suicide bombing by Palestinian militants in Jerusalem that killed 16 people, including the assailant.

Government officials have said Israeli forces will only withdraw after the owners of the Orient House provide guarantees that the Palestinian Authority will not operate from the complex.

The Orient House is owned by the Husseinis, a prominent Palestinian clan in Jerusalem.

The scion of the family, the late Faisal Husseini, was the top PLO official in Jerusalem and used the Orient House as his base.

Interim peace deals that granted the Palestinians autonomy in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip barred Yasser Arafat's government from operating in Jerusalem.

Palestinians have said that when Israel raided the Orient House, it broke earlier promises to keep Palestinian institutions in east Jerusalem intact.

Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it into its capital.

The future of Jerusalem was to be determined in negotiations on a final peace treaty.

Such talks broke down earlier this year.

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