The three-day conference was held in three different villages where the strongest Friday protests against the expropriation of Palestinian land for illegal Israeli settlements have taken place.

Representatives from Hamas, Fatah, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) amongst others, agreed that they would call on their followers to begin massive civil disobedience campaigns across the West Bank in September.

We told the various leaders that if they wanted to put their own party politics ahead of liberation, then they were not welcome at the event. However, if they were determined to work for liberation and the unification of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank politically and geographically then they would get our support, Abu Maria told IPS.

According to Younis Arrar, a leading member of Fatah, the West Bank Popular Committee leadership and an employee of the PA, the support of the entire Palestinian leadership has been confirmed.

They will get their supporters to take to the streets in their thousands on a massive scale. We are not talking about the current spot-fire protests in a number of West Bank villages but dozens of Palestinian cities, towns and villages across the Palestinian territories following the call, Arrar told IPS.

The Israelis fear non-violent mass civil unrest more than anything. They are hoping that we will turn violent because they can use their superior military force to crush us as they have always done. But we will stick to unarmed resistance, added Arrar.

I believe the Israelis will ensure at least some fatalities by shooting high-velocity teargas canisters directly at heads or aiming fire with live ammunition as they have done regularly in the past.

Some of the planned protests in the West Bank will include bicycle rallies and other demonstrations with political themes. In the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh villagers have set up tents, Egyptian revolution style, to highlight the continued theft of their land for the adjacent Israeli settlement of Halamish.