By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Thousands of Palestinians protested against the launch in Geneva on Monday of a symbolic peace pact with Israel, charging that the deal waives the right of millions of refugees to return to what is now the Jewish state. "Whoever sells my right as a refugee is a traitor who must be prosecuted," an opponent of the agreement between left-wing Israeli opposition figures and Palestinian politicians shouted during a demonstration in Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza. "The Geneva Accord is a scandal," thousands of demonstrators chanted in Gaza City during a second day of protests in the Gaza Strip. On Sunday, Palestinian delegates heading for Geneva were jostled by demonstrators as they crossed from Gaza to Egypt. The plan prescribes a Palestinian state but goes beyond a U.S.-backed peace "road map" in mandating evacuation of most Jewish settlements on occupied land and giving Israel the right to decide how many Palestinian refugees to take back. World leaders past and present gave strong backing on Monday for the unofficial peace plan drawn up by self-proclaimed moderates from both sides. Some 58 leading politicians, including many former presidents and prime ministers, signed a statement backing the accord at its launch in Geneva. But in Gaza City dozens of children marched holding banners bearing the names of towns and villages from where Palestinians fled or were forced to flee during the 1948 Middle East war when Israel was created. BETHLEHEM PROTEST In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, more than 50 people, including cabinet ministers Mitri Abu Aita and Salah al-Tamari, staged a sit-in outside a local annex of the Ramallah-based Palestinian parliament to protest against the accord. "We refuse any compromise on fundamental national Palestinian rights," said Bethlehem legislator Bishara Dahoud, an independent. The Palestinian Authority has accepted the Geneva initiative in principle but has not formally endorsed it. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has denounced the accord as capitulation to violence in a three-year-old Palestinian uprising. Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, said Palestinian politicians who travelled to Geneva for the gala ceremony represented only themselves. "We will fight it and it will collapse like all other projects of liquidation against the Palestinian cause," Rantissi told Reuters. Nafez Assam, a leader of Islamic Jihad, a group which like Hamas is dedicated to Israel's destruction, said the accord denies "the right of refugees to return to the land of their fathers and forefathers".
A Palestinian walks past a smuggling tunnel destroyed in an Israeli air strike near the border between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip November 24, 2009. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA POLITICS ...
