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Thousands of gathered in the on Thursday to commemorate 18 years since the passing of Palestinian political leader

The commemoration in the Hamas-ruled besieged Palestinian enclave was organised by the which Arafat founded in the 1950s. Participants raised pictures of Arafat and waved Fatah and Palestinian flags to the music of patriotic songs.

The Islamist Hamas movement took full control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after an armed conflict with Fatah, although the latter party is still allowed to operate there.

A large billboard at the event read "Yasser Arafat, your legacy is present today," centred between two pictures of the late leader and current Palestinian President and Fatah Movement head Mahmoud Abbas.

Participants at the commemoration also called on Fatah to achieve reconciliation with Hamas.

"It is important that we resolve the issue of Palestinian division, and devote ourselves to confronting the challenges facing the Palestinian people from all sides,” Fatah’s Gaza chief Ahmad Halas said during the event, adding that the Palestinian people were united in the face of "Israeli practices aimed at obscuring Palestinian identity".

Halas paid tribute to Arafat, saying that even after his passing "he is still present in all places".

Arafat, born in Jerusalem in 1929, died in a French hospital in November 2004. Many believe he was poisoned, but that has not been confirmed.

A Palestinian commission of inquiry charged with investigating the circumstances of Yasser Arafat's death has not yet presented any results on the details of the case, which is still shrouded in mystery.

Tawfik al-Tirawi, a member of the Fatah Movement’s central committee and head of the commission, denied in August news that was circulating about names of people accused in Arafat’s alleged assassination, stressing that investigations were not yet over.