BEIRUT, Jan 13: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called on Sunday on Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon to remain “steadfast” and vowed that all of them will return home to Palestine “very soon”.

“We should all continue our...sacrifice until our Palestinian state with Jerusalem (Al Quds) as its capital is established,” Arafat said during a speech which was broadcast through speakers to some 10,000 of his followers in the Rashidiyeh camp east of the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre.

The Palestinian leader, who spoke to his people on the 27th anniversary of the launch of the mainstream Fatah movement, stressed that the struggle against the Israeli occupation would continue until the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Sultan Abu Al Anian, Arafat’s personnel representative in Lebanon, told the Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa, that he spoke to Arafat on the telephone earlier and they decided to air “a message from him (Arafat) to his people to mark the occasion”.

There are some 367,000 Palestinian refugees living in 12 camps across Lebanon.—dpa