Some 3,000 protestors gathered in this West Bank town as part of a rally organised by the hardline Hamas movement which has denounced the accord for its de facto renunciation of the right of return of Palestinians who were expelled from or fled their homeland at the creation of the state of Israel in

Effigies of the chief Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo and his Israeli counterpart Yossi Beilin were set on fire as well as the red and white national emblem of Switzerland. The American Stars and Stripes flag was also torched.

The Swiss government largely financed the negotiations which culminated in the official launch of the Middle East peace accord at a lavish ceremony in Geneva on Monday.

Some of the protestors brandished banners denouncing the accord as a "conspiracy" and a "great crime".

"The Geneva Initiative is the most serious attack on the Palestinian national cause since the Balfour Declaration," said local Hamas chief Ahnan Asfur.

The declaration, drawn up by Britain's foreign minister Arthur Balfour in 1917, supported the creation of a home for the Jewish people in what was then British-mandate Palestine.

WAR.WIRE