RAMALLAH, June 23: Palestinian public figures who initiated an appeal calling for an end to suicide bombings against Israel were “a group of mercenaries known to our people for their cowardice”, a leaflet circulated on Sunday in Ramallah charged.

The leaflet, put out by the youth movement affiliated with the mainstream Fatah movement, which is headed by President Yasser Arafat, accused those behind the appeal of “siding with the occupation against the resistance”.

The appeal was first issued last Wednesday and signed by about 55 leading Palestinian figures, including legislator Hanan Ashrawi and Sari Nusseibeh, the PLO’s ranking official in Al Quds.

The document, published in the al-Quds Palestinian daily, called on those behind the bombings to “rethink and reconsider these actions, and to stop sending young men to carry out such attacks targeting civilians in Israel.”

“We do not see any benefit from such attacks, except to widen the chasm of hatred between the two peoples,” the appeal said.

But Sunday’s leaflet slammed the appeal, saying it “did not refer with even one word to the (Israeli) occupation, as if the occupation is innocent from the crimes and terrorism and that our people are the aggressors and murderers.”

It accused the initiators of the appeal of being “agents of Western, Zionist and American intelligence”. The leaflet singled out Nusseibeh, calling him “a traitor... who gets his monthly salary from his Zionist, American and Western masters.”

Palestinians report that an estimated 1,000 people have signed the appeal since it was first published in al-Quds on Wednesday.

But the appeal has now been changed to include a sentence blaming the Israeli occupation.

A poll published by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre found that two-thirds of the Palestinians (68.1 per cent) support the suicide bombings.—dpa