Ramallah, West Bank  - "With our souls, with our blood, we will sacrifice for Gaza" and "God is great," chant the protesters, as they march after completing Friday's prayers from the mosque at Ramallah's vegetable market to the West Bank city's central Manara circus.

"One people, united against the Israeli aggression," say several signs they hold up.

A two- to three-year-old sits on his father's shoulders, a Palestinian flag tied around his head and a plastic toy rifle in his hand. Then follow a group of dozens of women, all holding up copies of the Koran as they chant.

The protesters mostly carry black-white-green-and-red Palestinian flags, but a few standing on a truck also wave two Venezuelan flags and carry a large portrait of President Hugo Chavez, who earlier this week called Israel "cowardly" and expelled the Israeli ambassador from Caracas.

The administration of President Mahmoud Abbas and the demonstration's organizers, handing out the four-colour national flags, have told people not to carry either Hamas or Fatah flags in a show of unity.

But as a leading independent legislator pleads for national unity over a truck loudspeaker, what was meant as a large display of just that - a united protest against Israel - quickly turns into yet another factional spat.

A boy carries a large Palestinian flag, with a tiny green Hamas flag taped to the back, so Abbas' security forces - present in large numbers both in blue police uniforms and in civilian cloths - do not see it.

When one group then starts chanting slogans in support of Fatah and Abbas, another begins to chant "Hamas, will shake the earth!"

Soon a few dozen heated young men in Fatah baseball caps with wooden sticks - guided by what bystanders say are Abbas' security forces - storm after someone who appears to be a Hamas supporter.

Intelligence officers in civilian cloths drag away a protester to a green van of the National Security Service, as he shouts "I didn't do anything" - and then soon disperse the demonstration.

Up to 3,000 people attended the march in the heart of downtown Ramallah, which would be filled with as many as 50,000 during past demonstrations a few years ago, especially those called by the popular and disciplined Hamas shortly after it won the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Israel was initially concerned its Gaza offensive would revive major unrest throughout the West Bank.

Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal called for a third Intifada (uprising) against Israel. But while mass demonstrations have been held elsewhere in the Arab world, the West Bank has been comparatively quiet. "Why?" wonder some observers.

Palestinians in the West Bank, while outraged at the high death toll in Gaza, say they feel that going out into the streets en mass would make "no difference."

Still exhausted from the second Intifada, which erupted in late 2000 amid a deadlock in the peace process but has largely died down in the West Bank, they say the uprising brought nothing but Israel's security wall and more military roadblocks. They have no interest in a third one.

Many in the West Bank also say they have lost faith in both Hamas and Fatah, the two largest Palestinian political factions which have been locked in a bitter and at times bloody power struggle ever since the radical Islamic movement beat the secular party of the Palestinian establishment in the 2006 elections.

Hamas, they suspect, would not hesitate to use whatever means, including violence, to seize sole control over the West Bank as it did of Gaza in June 2007, while Fatah promoted a peace process that has brought nothing but promises.

Both factions, therefore, have more difficulty to mobilize large numbers of people than they had in the past. Hamas, more centralized than Fatah, is still able to call up larger numbers of its supporters' base, but its demonstrations have been harshly crushed down by Abbas' security forces.

During a protest against Israel's Gaza offensive in Ramallah last Friday, security forces in civilian cloths beat several female supporters of Hamas.

Police threatened to confiscate the cameras of journalists who had documented the beatings, until the cameramen pledged not to publish the footage. The police arrested several protesters, who say they were also beaten before being released.

"We are all feeling awful," said shoarma shop employee Mohammed Nakhla of the Gaza violence, adding that in his 25 years "I haven't seen anything worse."

"I don't know anyone there (in Gaza), but we are all Palestinians. There is no difference between Hamas and Fatah. We all have the same goal. We want freedom for our country."

But even in the face of the fierce Israeli offensive in Gaza, the rift and distrust between the two rival factions seems as deep as ever. (dpa)