Palestinian Authority minister Kadoura Fares announced Sunday afternoon that Fatah officials who had signed the Geneva Accord would depart for the peace plan's launching ceremony in Geneva, scheduled to take place on Monday. Earlier in the day, Fatah officials said that they would not depart for the ceremony until Fatah institutions, namely the party’s central committee, formally announce acceptance of the peace plan.

Fares told Israel Radio that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat gave his consent for the Fatah members’ departure for the ceremony.

Four prominent Palestinians who negotiated a symbolic Mideast peace agreement had canceled their participation in a launching ceremony Monday in Switzerland this week after Arafat refused to offer written support and shots were fired at a negotiator's home, Palestinian officials said Sunday. [...]

In a further sign of opposition, about 200 Palestinians attacked Palestinian negotiators traveling Sunday to Geneva for the signing ceremony. Screaming "traitors," the angry Palestinians blocked the road near a crossing into Egypt and beat and kicked the Palestinian negotiators and dignitaries as they emerged from their cars. Unarmed Palestinian police had to restrain the demonstrators to allow the officials to get through.

The officials were traveling to Cairo, and from there would fly onto Switzerland. Raouf Barbakh, a Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip, said he opposed the document since it calls on the Palestinian refugees to relinquish their right of return to territories that are now part of the Palestinian state.

"The Switzerland document's proposals ... on Palestinian refugees are totally unacceptable," Barbakh said after the demonstration. "We condemn all those who conspired against the right of return."

On Saturday, about 150 Palestinians protested the treaty in the Balata refugee in the West Bank...