NABLUS, May 22 (IslamOnline.net) - Palestinian factions reacted with fury as the Arab leaders meeting in Tunis Saturday, May 22, are reported to condemn Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians, in their final statement.

The Palestinian Authority, however, said it would support any "reasonable resolutions" out of the two-day meeting, insisting opposition to "any killings of Israeli or Palestinian civilians".

As he opened the gathering at a flag-bedecked conference center in Tunisia's seaside capital on the Mediterranean, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine ben Ali urged the summit participants to "stand up and hold a minute of silence in respect for the Palestinian martyrs".

Ben Ali condemned "targeting innocent civilians", from the Israeli and Palestinian sides and denounced "terrorism ... so that a safer world may be established".

A senior Arab official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the summit would adopt a resolution that "condemns military operations against Palestinian civilians and Palestinian leaders, as well as operations against civilians, without discrimination".

That condemnation would be a first for an Arab summit to condemn Palestinian attacks against civilians.

Critics, on the other hand, charge that Arab governments are so weak that they are at the mercy of the hard-line policies of U.S. President George W. Bush and his main regional ally Israel, according to AFP.

Arab officials also did not rule out that Arab countries would-be condemnation of the Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians could come in return for a U.S. amendment of a reform proposal in the region.

The Arab leaders' plans of condemnation drew ire of Palestinian factions who charged the stance carries an unfair comparison with the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in almost-daily raids by the Israeli occupation army.

"Those leaders consider, in this way, the Israeli offensives as a response to Palestinian operations, not the opposite," said Abdel-Sattar Qassem, a political science lecturer in the Palestinian University of al-Najah.

"This is embarrassing to those leaders before their peoples and media outlets," Qassem told IslamOnline.net.

"This tendency also enhances the position of Arab opposition groups and escalates the lack of public credibility of Arab leaders," he averred.

Palestinian resistance groups, Hamas and Fatah, meanwhile, joined forces to open fire on the reported condemnation by the Arab countries in the summit, saying the move would rather "serve the interests of Israel".

"The Arab officialdom has already proved its paralysis by turning a blind eye to the Israeli aggressions against Palestinians in Rafah and other occupied Palestinian territories," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zahra told IOL.

Abu Zahra said the condemnations would be part of "dues that should be repaid to the American administration".

Washington had bracketed Hamas on the list terrorist groups, despite the group's popularity among Arab peoples as a power of resistance to a long-standing occupation of Palestinian lands and almost-daily military incursions.

"Such statements do service to Israel, even if Arab leaders also condemned Israeli military offensives, as they are no balance of power between the two sides," said Amin Maqboul, a Fatah leader in the West Bank.

Maqboul expected the resolutions to come out of the summit would "be by no means effective on the ground".

Jibril al-Rajoub, an advisor of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, declined to comment on any resolutions expected out of the summit.

But he said the Palestinian Authority said it would support any "reasonable resolutions" as it goes "against "killing Israeli and Palestinian civilians".

"But the Arab leaders should issue resolutions that would act as elements of pressure on the U.S. and Israel, and as political and financial boosts to efforts for ending occupation and creating an independent Palestinian state," Rajoub said.

"Our target should be military personnel and not civilians when Israel does not attack our civilians," Mawlawi said.

"But as we can see nowadays, they violate the lives of all Palestinians, civilians or non-civilians… Their aggression, they make no distinction between a baby or an elderly person. They have also committed many massacres," he said.

"Hence, we have no other choice but to treat them in the same way to deter them. Hence, we are allowed to kill every Israeli until they stop this mass killing."

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA stressed in May that the "total number of Palestinians made homeless by Israeli’s military demolition campaign climbed above 12,000 this month.