Prime minister Ahmed Qorei was due to speak at the rally outside the local headquarters of parliament during festivities which were also marking the birthday of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

While the Palestinian Authority is concerned that Israel will try to use its pullout from Gaza to limit further withdrawals from the West Bank, it has decided to embrace the disengagement plan as a victory for “the liberation movement.”

“The Palestinian people liberated this land”, the “Palestinian people are building the state”, read banners carried by people taking part in the demonstration which has been organised by the governing Fatah faction.

Abdel Hakim Awad, the head of Fatah’s Shabiba youth wing, said that hundreds of thousands of T-shirts and flags had been printed as part of the celebrations.

“We will hand out 120,000 Palestinian flags, 150,000 T-shirts with the Palestinian flag in the background and 120,000 black and white keffiyehs in the Gaza Strip, he said in reference to the headscarf famously warn by Arafat.

Awad said that a specially created “celebrations committee” had chartered 160 buses which would drive Palestinians into the 21 Israeli settlements after they have been evacuated.