SOS: Palestinian hospitals have issued urgent calls on Palestinians to donate blood
Palestinian hospitals have issued urgent calls for Palestinians to donate blood to the main medical centers in their respective towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to cope with the increasing number of Palestinians who were shot and wounded by Israeli troops on Thursday. Both the Voice of Palestine and the Palestinian television have called on people, mainly those with O-negative blood to rush immediately to hospitals and donate since the hospitals were facing a serious shortage in blood supplies.
Meanwhile, Israel took extra precautionary measures and put more troops on alert in anticipation of further rounds of unrest after Friday prayers. Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Mordechai said he had instructed his troops to practice what he called a self-restraint but again threatened that his forces would not allow further unrest in the Palestinian territories. Interviewed on Israel's Channel 2 television, Mordechai expressed his concern over the mounting unrest in the Palestinian territories and said that Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu "is doing his best in Washington to reach a breakthrough in the stalled peace process."
Israeli military sources admitted Thursday night they did not expect the unrest in East Jerusalem to be as violent as it was and blamed the Palestine National Authority for initiating the demonstrations in an expression of discontent over the stalled peace process in the region. The sources said the real test of control in the Palestinian territories would be on Friday when thousands of Palestinian worshippers are expected to take to the streets after the prayers to mourn those who were shot dead by Israeli troops on Thursday, the day of remembrance the Palestinians declared to mark the 50th anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe. Some of those killed on Thursday are expected to be buried on Friday and during their funerals more clashes were said expected between Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers.
PNA President Yasser Arafat's special advisor on Israeli affairs, Dr. Ahmad Tibi, confirmed that the Palestinian National Authority will declare the independent Palestinian state by May next year. "We hope the declaration of the independent Palestinian state will be within the outcome of the final status talks between the PNA and Israel but if that is not reached, then the state will be declared," he said on Thursday evening.