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CU: Abu Sherif speaking in English.
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ABU SHERIF: "We are for the time being fighting the occupation forces of the Israeli enemy. We will not stop this fight; we will not stop out attacks on the occupation forces until they are withdrawn. On the other hand, it is the full right of the Palestinian people to continue afterwards their activities for the liberation of Palestine, until the establishment of a democratic state over there. We will not accept any barrier that will prohibit the Palestinians from carrying their actions, from acting to liberate Palestine under any conditions. Besides that we think that the Security Council resolution is a ridiculous one because it is a reward for the occupation forces for its attack on the south Lebanon. On one hand you have the United States supplying the Israeli army with the advanced military arms, the F-15, the cluster bombs and all sorts of other advanced and sophisticated arms, to kill our people...civilians...to erase villages, and on the other hand you find the United States proposing a resolution to the Security Council which has a serious content of rewarding the occupation forces, politically speaking. We reject that, and we think that this is to serve the enemy, whether the Israeli, or the imperialist enemy."



Reuters news agency says the Palestinian guerrillas are likely to come under pressure from Syria to observe the ceasefire in southern Lebanon. Syrian sources in Damascus have said Syria does not oppose the presence of a United Nations peacekeeping force. Syria had provided the bulk of the 30,000-man Arab League Defence Force policing an uneasy truce between rightists and leftists in Lebanon. U.N. officials have said it could take a month or more to get the bulk of the 4,000-man U.N. force into position. Reuters news agency quotes military analysts as saying it would also be some time before the 25,000 Israeli troops in southern Lebanon pulled out.




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Background: Despite the presence of United Nations troops in southern Lebanon, Palestinian leaders there have vowed to continue their strikes against Israel. The second-in-command of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Mr. Bassam Abu Sherif, said the attacks would not stop until all Israeli forces had been withdrawn from Lebanon. He also condemned the United Nations Security Council resolution putting U.N. troops in the battle zone, saying it was an apparent reward to Israel for invading southern Lebanon. Mr. Bassam Abu Sherif was speaking in Beirut, on Tuesday, (21 March) as U.N. troops were about to arrive.