Palestinians Bid Farewell to Poet Mahmoud Darwish in Ramallah

10,000 honor poet Mahmoud Darwish in Ramallah

Date: 13 / 08 / 2008 Time: 12:52
Ramallah – Ma’an –

A river of some 10,000 people bearing the body of poet Mahmoud Darwish arrived at the Cultural Palace just outside the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.

Another 3,000 people gathered at the Cultural Palace on Wednesday morning. More joined them, marching from the presidential compound in central Ramallah. The poet is to be buried on a hillside overlooking the cultural complex.

Earlier, President Mahmoud Abbas and other notable Palestinian figures addressed Darwish's official funeral in the presidential compound, the Muqata'a.

Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, died in a Huston, Texas hospital on Saturday following open heart surgery. He was 67.

Darwish's body arrived on a flight from the United States in Amman, Jordan, just before 10am. After a short ceremony the casket was loaded onto a Jordanian military helicopter which flew to Ramallah, landing at noon.

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Presidential advisor Yasser Abed Rabbo, Knesset member Ahmed At-Tibi, Chief of Staff Rafiq Al-Husseini and Presidential aide Akram Haniyah accompanied the body in the helicopter.

President Abbas sent a delegation led by his chief of staff to the United States to transport the body to Amman.

Hundreds of buses coming from all over Palestine and the interior of Israel brought mourners to Ramallah. Groups also came from the occupied Golan Heights and Lebanon.

Palestinians have held candlelight vigils for the poet in various cities over the last three nights.

Far from Ramallah, a procession will leave the Ahihud junction, east of Acre, heading toward the former village of Al-Birwah, where Darwish was born. A symbolic funeral will be held there, as youth recite Darwish's poems. Al-Barweh was destroyed by Israeli forces in 1948.

***Updated at 14:11 local time

Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish laid to rest in Ramallah

Wednesday August 13, 2008 12:28 by Rula Shahwan - IMEMC News

Thousands of Palestinians and internationals attend Darwish's funeral on Wednesday in Ramallah, after his body arrived from the USA with a special Emirates airplane, then with special helicopters from Jordan at around 11:00 am.

After several hours, the Israeli authorities agreed to open the Beituniya checkpoint point in the central West Bank in order to allow Palestinian citizens of Israel to travel to Ramallah for the funeral of poet Mahmoud Darwish.

A Palestinian member of Israeli Knesset, Muhammad Baraka contacted Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai and the Israeli cabinet coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, Yousif Mishlib, calling for the checkpoint to be opened.

Darwish was laid to rest at 14:00 in the front yard of the Cultural Palace in Ramallah, which will be named after him. He is an internationally respected cultural icon among the Palestinian and Arab people and well-known among international supporters of the Palestinian cause.

His poetry is seen as the voice of all Palestinians - a voice of resistance against the occupation and of Palestinian unification, calling for an end to factional infighting.

Darwish's works were translated into more than twenty languages and he also won several international prizes. He died on Sunday in a Houston hospital in the United States after going in for heart surgery.

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