December 23, 2001	Sunday	Shawwal 7, 1422

DAMASCUS, Dec 21: Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah “will not abandon the resistance option” against Israel, despite US pressure on Lebanon and Syria for the group to stop its attacks, a group official said on Friday.

“American threats against Hezbollah are intended to stop support for the Palestinian people,” said Ammar Mussawi, a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament, in a speech in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk on the outskirts of Damascus.

“But it is a matter of pride for Hezbollah to stand alongside the Palestinian people and its resistance, and we vow not to abandon the resistance option,” he added.

“He who deprives his people of the elements which make up their strength can only negotiate on the basis of the enemy’s conditions,” said Maher Taher, a member of the political bureau of the PFLP, the group which claimed responsibility for the October assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.

“We categorically refuse to submit, and we categorically refuse any intra-Palestinian confrontation,” he added, in reference to the repression being carried out by Arafat’s Palestinian Authority against the anti-Israeli militants.—AFP