Fatah leader: Next intifada more horrific

GAZA, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A future Palestinian uprising would be more horrific and deadly than any intifada Israel has experienced, a recently freed Fatah party leader predicts.

"The next intifada will not be one of stones, or even suicide bombers -- it will be one of missiles and possibly even chemical weapons," Fatah leader Hussam Khader said in an interview with Israel's Haaretz newspaper several days after being released from an Israeli prison after six years for a leadership role in the second intifada.

That intifada, beginning in September 2000, involved armed Palestinian attacks on Israeli security forces, suicide bombings and Kassam rocket attacks into Israeli residential areas.

Israel created checkpoints and strict curfews, demolished Palestinian shops and houses, constructed the West Bank barrier and killed militant and political leaders.

But Khader told Haaretz he preferred peace to war and supported Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"He believes in the peace process and in negotiations more than anyone else in the PA," Khader said.

"Every president following him will have only two options -- to resign or to embark on a military intifada."

Abbas said May 20 he would resign if current peace talks did not bring about an agreement in principal "within six months."