Abu Haroon, a black-clad, bearded militant spent Monday, as he spends many days, trying to fire rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Yesterday, though, he took the day off.

“We have orders not to fire any rockets on Tuesday, because of the Annapolis summit,” he said. But there was a rider. “We can resume normal activities after the summit ends.”

Across the region, Palestinians and Israelis marked the historic gathering of their leaders on the Maryland coast with a mixture of controlled fury and calculated indifference.

Chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” filled the streets of Gaza City, as tens of thousands protested against the summit. The Islamist group Hamas organised the rally to emphasise that Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian President, does not speak for the entire Palestinian population. Hamas seized control of Gaza last June after routing Fatah forces loyal to Mr Abbas, and the President’s lack of control of Gaza has raised questions about his ability to carry out a future peace deal.

In the West Bank, where Mr Abbas holds sway, hundreds defied a ban on anti-Annapolis rallies to attend protests held by small Islamist groups. One man was killed by Mr Abbas’s security forces and nearly fifteen were injured, according to local medics.

“I did not authorise [President Abbas] to speak for me. I did not authorise him to give up a single piece of my land. He should be working to lift the suffering of the Palestinian people and to bring unity back to the people instead of fooling around with the Israelis,” said Mahmoud Abd-el-Kadr, a 40-year-old bus driver who attended the protest in Gaza City.

A Gazan woman, who identified herself as a 34-year-old teacher, called the officials gathered in Annapolis “a bunch of losers”, adding that they did not represent the issues that were important to the daily lives of Palestinians.

The urban centres of Tel Aviv and Ramallah, however, went on with business as usual. Muhammad Shareef, a 41-year-old shopkeeper in Ramallah, said that he could not be bothered to disrupt his daily life for “a handshake in America.” He said: “I am going on with my life as usually because I don’t see Annapolis as a significant event. I am waiting to see what the follow-up is. There have been many peace talks and they have brought nothing. When I see something happening besides a handshake I will get excited.”

On the Israeli side, the population was similarly divided. More than 20,000 religious and right-wing protesters gathered in Jerusalem at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, to protest against the conference. Dozens more marched to the Israeli government compound to demonstrate in front of the Prime Minister’s residence.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the hardline Israeli opposition leader, denounced the conference as a continuation of one-sided concessions. In Tel Aviv, the largest city in Israel, most ignored the first attempt at peace talks that Israel has seen in more than seven years.

Mickey Cohanim, a 26-year-old university student, said that most Israelis were apathetic to Annapolis because they did not see it a a real peace effort. “There are so many other problems in this country that our Government can’t seem to solve. How can we believe that they can solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?” he asked.

Israelis rated the Annapolis peace summit as the lowest item on their list of concerns, according to a poll published this week. In descending order, they ranked education, personal safety, economy and the socio-econ-omic situation before Annapolis.

Some countries were clearly feeling left out. Iran, the biggest player not to be invited to the summit, chose yesterday to claim that it had developed a missile capable of reaching Israel. The Ashura had a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles), according to the Iranian Defence Minister, and was now the largest in Tehran’s arsenal.

In Gaza Abu Haroon, from the Fatah-affiliated al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, explained his personal history with Israel.

He first threw stones at soldiers as an eleven-year-old, then began firing bullets in 2000, the start of the second intifada, and soon learnt the dark arts of rocket preparation and dispatch, he said. He would not say from whom he received orders or what the chain of command was. Many analysts believe that President Abbas, who has publicly condemned rocket-firing as “silly and counterproductive”, at most has only limited control over the Brigades.

Among Abu Haroon’s group is Muhammad, a 23-year-old computer expert, who on Monday evening was using Google Earth to locate the target on the Israeli side of the fence. In good English – he had been to college – Muhammad complained that these days the maps were deliberately being made inaccurate to foil rocket-eering precision. He was being allowed to join his first rocket-firing mission since joining the group three years previously. His mother, he said, had cried repeatedly about his decision, but his father, a Hamas supporter, had given his blessing.

Speaking on Monday evening Abu Haroon was clear about his strategy. “Even if we didn’t kill any of the enemy tonight,” he said, “at least we made the Israelis afraid. They must know we will resist – summit or no summit.”

With reporting by Asmi Kashawi in Gaza City.

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