Jihad: Calls for dialog incompatible with quelling popular demos

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The Islamic Jihad Movement has strongly criticized the quelling by PA security apparatuses in the West Bank of popular demonstrations and rallies to support their brothers in "steadfast Gaza". The Movement in a statement on Friday lashed out at the PA security for blocking Palestinian masses from marching in protest against the Israeli occupation forces' bloody onslaught on the Gaza Strip that has been ongoing for one week unabated. It said that rallies were blocked in Al-Khalil and other areas while marches in certain areas were not allowed to reach IOF roadblocks. PA security elements encircled a number of marches and beat up participants while banning them from hoisting banners of Palestinian factions, the Movement elaborated. Jihad said that national unity is not a mere slogan to be voiced in official speeches and propaganda statements but rather is a method to be pursued in the field. "We re-assert that such practices are the real obstacle impeding actual national cohesion," it said, charging that the PA security coordination with the IOF was the reason for such measures, which, it said, ran contrary to "our people's interests, unity and cause". The Jihad Movement underlined that the only position that would reflect national unity is allowing resistance in the West Bank to act, to release resistance elements and return confiscated weapons to them to assume their role in protecting and defending the people especially in the current state of open war with the "Zionist enemy".