"A new neighborhood will be built, with 3,000 new housing units, on what was known as the settlement of Morag," Abbas said in a speech in Gaza City.

Morag lies just a few kilometers from the Palestinian town of Khan Yunis.

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians at the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, Syria Friday celebrated the Zionist regime's withdrawal from Gaza.

"Gaza is the beginning of freedom," they chanted. "It is the beginning of the road toward a state."

The demonstrators waved Palestinian and Syrian flags and carried portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

It was the second such demonstration this week at Yarmouk, which has about 150,000 inhabitants and is the biggest in Syria, the home to half a million Palestinians.

"This demonstration reflects the joy of the scattered Palestinian people over the pullout and the dismantling of the settlements," said Maher al-Taher, an official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

"It is the beginning of the recovery of our national rights, starting with the right to return and the establishment of an independent state with Jerusalem (al-Qods) as its capital," he said.

"The struggle will continue and we will not lay down our arms until the aims of the Palestinian people have been met."

(IRIB)