Iran vows to avenge killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh

Paul Adams
Diplomatic correspondent, in the West Bank

With the shops closed and the midday sun beating down, Palestinians took to the streets in the centre of Ramallah to vent their anger.

Ramallah, home of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, is not exactly a stronghold of Hamas.
The demonstration wasn’t huge – a few hundred people at most.

But no one should doubt the strength of feeling, the sense of shock and anger, generated by the killing of Ismail Haniyeh.
The green banners of Hamas were held aloft, alongside – but outnumbering – the black, white, green and red, Palestinian flag. Children rode on their fathers’ shoulders, carrying toy machineguns.

Defiant chants echoed through the streets. But there’s real anxiety here too. Palestinians feel that a wider conflict might be looming, one that could engulf the West Bank.
They feel that this is what the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu wants.

“I think the Israeli government has just committed one of the gravest mistakes in its life,” the moderate Palestinian politician and former presidential candidate Mustapha Barghouti told me earlier, as he prepared to walk with the demonstrators.

“This was a political, criminal act and if they think that this act of assassination will break the Palestinian resistance, they are absolutely wrong.”

Image source, EPA