GAZA, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday marked the 16th anniversary of the death of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Leaders and supporters of the Fatah movement, chaired by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, visited Arafat's house in Gaza City, waving the yellow flags of Fatah and holding huge posters of Arafat.

Fayez Abu Aita, a Fatah leader in Gaza, told Xinhua that this commemoration of Arafat's death confirmed that Palestinians will follow his footsteps until their independent state is established.

"We have been challenging a complicated phase, especially in the light of the U.S-Israeli threats to liquidate the Palestinian cause. So, we hope to restore the national unity that the Palestinian people have lost after Yasser Arafat," he said.

In Arafat's home, dozens of children held candles in memory of the late Palestinian president, while others held his pictures.

Arafat signed the historic Oslo Accords, which marked the start of a peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, with late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Washington in 1993 and in Egypt in 1995.

After leaving the Gaza Strip in 2002, Arafat was confined by the Israeli army at his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah until he died of a mysterious disease in November 2004. Enditem

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