Palestinian anger was particularly high today after the Israeli Army's slaying of five Palestinian security officers on Monday in what the army acknowledged had been an unprovoked attack on the men. Israeli officials expressed concern that Yasir Arafat had sent his people a combative message in a Catastrophe Day address. But at least in Ramallah, Mr. Arafat's quite fiery speech, on tape because the Palestinian leader spent the day abroad, bleated out of tinny loudspeakers without causing a discernible stir among the crowd. Some could not hear him, and some had heard it all before, including Mr. Arafat's lament that the world was not paying sufficient attention to the Palestinian plight. We will never be defeated, no matter how destructive the weapons that are used against our masses and our children and our infants as they are breast-fed by their mothers.
Rockets smash and penetrate their fragile bodies.
Their blood is shed. But the world is in a state of slumber, failing to pay attention to the acts that are committed by the Israeli aggressors. When the siren an echo of the one that sounds on Israel's Memorial Day wound down at Manara Square in Ramallah, the crowd cheered wildly, thrust fingers making V-signs into the air and then marched by the thousands toward a junction at Ramallah's northern entrance. Most kept their distance from Israeli troops. But a couple of dozen youths approached, and some began throwing stones.