EIN ELHELWEH, Lebanon, Dec. 31 - -- Palestinian guerrillas celebrated on Sunday the launching of the mainstream Fatah movement 36 years ago, with a military parade inside a refugee camp in south Lebanon and calls for continuing the Intifada (Uprising) against Israeli occupying forces.
Some 2,500 Palestinians, including dozens of guerrillas, toured the shantytown of Ein el-Helweh on the outskirts of the port city of Sidon waving Palestinian flags and pictures of their leader Yasser Arafat.
The guerrillas totting Soviet-made Kalshnikov rifles paraded in front of the crowd while Khaled Aref, a Fatah official in south Lebanon, pledged to continue fighting until the Palestinians regained their land and legitimate rights.
Aref said the peace negotiations with Israel will not obstruct or stop the raging Intifada and that the "Fatah rifles remain directed against Israel."
He rejected any attempts to settle the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries hosting them and insisted on the right of the Palestinian people for self-determination.
During the ceremony, a list including names of some 325 Fatah guerrillas killed inside the occupied territories since Fatah military operations started in 1965 was distributed.
Fatah controls the main refugee camps in south Lebanon, including Ein el-Helweh where more than 65,000 Palestinians live. There are some 350,000 Palestinian refugees living across Lebanon since their exodus from their homeland following the creation of Israel in 1948.
