© REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu MustafaPalestinians step on crossed-out posters depicting late former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as they mark his passing, Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Jan. 11, 2014.
An atmosphere of joy and gloating prevailed in the Gaza Strip as news arrived of Sharon's death on Jan. 11 - after having spent eight years in a coma in an Israeli hospital. He is considered one of the most murderous Israeli figures against the Palestinians.
Activists belonging to various Palestinian parties distributed candy in some neighborhoods of Gaza City, carrying pictures of Sharon with a red circle around him and a line through his face. They celebrated the announcement of his death, regarding it as a "holy day" worth celebrating.
All Palestinian factions agreed that Sharon was a war criminal deserving of death, and he should not be mourned. Rather, in their view, he deserved more than death and should have been referred to international courts after committing crimes against Palestinians in both Lebanon and Palestine.
The Hamas movement was quick to issue statements expressing its position on Sharon's death. The former prime minister had assassinated the leader and founder of the movement, Ahmed Yassin, in addition to other prominent leaders such as Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi and Ismail Abu Shanab. "The death of Sharon after eight years in a coma is a sign from God and a lesson for all tyrants," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, in a statement released on Jan. 11.
"The Palestinian people are living a historic moment with the departure of this criminal, who has stained his hands with the blood of our people and its leaders. We are more confident in the victory of God in light of the departure of these tyrants," Abu Zuhri added.
Meanwhile, the Fatah movement, which accuses Sharon of assassinating Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after he was besieged in his headquarters in the Ramallah province, considered that Sharon deserved death for his crimes against Palestinians everywhere.
"Sharon is 'the criminal of Sabra and Shatila,' and he murdered Yasser Arafat. He has always been an enemy of the Palestinian people and their causes. He was in the dustbin of history for eight years as divine punishment. However, we are pained that he died without being brought to justice and standing trial for the crimes and massacres he committed," noted Faisal Abu Shahla, a member of the Fatah Legislative Council in Gaza, speaking to Al-Monitor.
Memories of Sharon in the Gaza Strip stretch back to early 1971, when he was the commander of the southern region in the Israeli army. He was tasked with the mission of "liquidating Palestinian terrorism in the Gaza Strip," and Israeli forces entered the Palestinian camps and destroyed dozens of houses. Some Israeli studies state that 742 Palestinians were killed in those operations.
"We do not gloat in the death of anyone, even if he was our enemy. We had hoped that before he died, Sharon would have been brought to justice for what he committed against our people and the peoples of the region in general. There is irrefutable evidence that he committed massacres against Palestinians and Egyptian soldiers, and in Lebanon as well. He should have been condemned and received punishment for these crimes," Islamic Jihad senior official Nafez Azzam told Al-Monitor.
"Sharon expresses the real face of the Zionist movement and its goals and projects in the region. This is an ugly face, and [Sharon] has shown this ugliness though his dark history, especially through shedding the blood of the martyrs and when he entered an Arab capital - Beirut - for the first time," said Zulfikar Suergo, an official in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, to Al-Monitor.
Before he headed the Israeli government, Sharon was a direct cause for the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, when he entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex and clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in all regions along the Green Line in September 2000.
Statistics from the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights indicate that more than 2,300 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip during Sharon's time as prime minister, from 2001 to 2006. These Palestinians were killed during incursions by Israeli forces into Palestinian areas, most notably "Operation Rainbow" in 2004, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Al-Monitor spoke to Ali al-Mughayer, 36, a Rafah resident whose two siblings - 11-year-old Ahmed and 13-year-old Asmaa - were killed by Israeli forces in 2004. He expressed his happiness at Sharon's death, saying, "Joy has filled the house here. People were dancing in the streets when they heard the news that he had finally died."
Meanwhile, Sami Kaloub, 40, a resident of Gaza City, considered the death of Sharon a milestone in the history of Palestinians and Israelis. "Yes, Sharon was the 'head of evil' in the region, but he was also one of the Israeli leaders that was most loyal to his people and his country. This is what we are missing when it comes to Arab leaders. I hope that we can find an Arab or Palestinian who works for our cause like Sharon did for Zionism," he told Al-Monitor.
Sharon succeeded in removing Israeli settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip in 2005, as part of the plan to disengage from Gaza. It was a unilateral move and did not involve an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, which controlled the Strip at the time. Yet Hamas and other armed factions said that the evacuation of Israeli settlements came as the result of the resistance.
"Sharon's step to withdraw from the Gaza Strip was not taken in the interest of the Palestinian people, rather it was a [calculated] move by the military establishment to insert Palestinians into the 'furnace of internal battles.' Unfortunately, he succeeded in doing this. The division we are currently experiencing did not come by chance, rather it was part of a calculated Israeli plan. Sharon was one of the most prominent figures responsible for drawing up this plan," Suergo said.
While the death of Sharon represented joy for the Palestinians, which they expressed in different ways, residents of Gaza are still living under the Israeli blockade. In addition, they had two harsh experiences with war after his coma, as well as dozens of military confrontations that did not come to an end despite the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in 2005.
Comment: Meanwhile, Israelis are remembering this barbarian as 'naive' for 'extending the hand of peace to Palestinians'...
Sharon didn't pull settlers out of Gaza as an act of kindness towards Palestinians; he did it to help 'make permanent' Gaza's situation as an open-air prison.
Consistent with this policy, the Separation Wall through the West Bank was his idea.
It wouldn't surprise us in the least to learn that the 'suicide bombers' were his idea too.
Sharon didn't give a damn about anyone or anything. He was a psychopath like all the other leaders in Israel and elsewhere; their creed is 'just do what you like, take what you like, kill as you like, then make stuff up about why you did it'.