(AKI) - The Islamist Hamas movement on Tuesday stopped Fatah supporters from staging marches to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Hamas banned the marches by declaring a state of alert and thus effectively preventing Fatah supporters from commemorating his death.Meanwhile in the Fatah-ruled West Bank, several thousand Palestinians were planning to march in memory of Arafat.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Arafat and other important Palestinian 'martyrs' should be remembered regardless of their faction.
"We must work with honesty to preserve all that Yasser Arafat and all Palestinian martyrs such as Ahmed Yassin have done, and we will remember them even though they do not want us to," said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas referring to Hamas.
In March 2004, Hamas leader Abdelaziz al-Rantisi and Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin were assassinated by Israeli Air Forces.
Arafat, (photo) the former head of the Palestine Liberation Organization died in Paris on 11 November 2004 of unknown causes.
His tomb is located in the West Bank's administrative capital of Ramallah, inside the Presidential compound known as the Muqata. The Palestinian Authority has held several memorial services in the West Bank for Arafat in the past few days.
In 2007, hundreds of thousands of supporters took to the streets of Gaza to commemorate Arafat's death. Five people were killed and another 100 wounded after gunfire was exchanged between Fatah and Hamas supporters.
Since his death Palestinian politics has been divided with the most dramatic and often violent differences between the secular nationalist Fatah party and the radical Islamist group Hamas.