Thousands of Gazans have attended the funeral of Haidar Abdel Shafi, who led Palestinian negotiators at the Madrid peace conference in 1991.
In a rare show of unity after months of unrest in Gaza, representatives of all political factions joined the mourning.
The 88-year-old co-founder of the Palestine Liberation Organisation died earlier on Tuesday from cancer.
He was known as a die-hard critic of the late Yasser Arafat and concessions he gave to Israel in peace talks.
Leaders of Hamas, the Islamist movement which seized security control in Gaza in June, joined rivals from Fatah in commemorating the life of Abdel Shafi.
Hamas called him "one of the most important symbols of the Palestinian people and their historic struggle to regain their legitimate rights".
Current chief negotiator and Fatah loyalist Saeb Erekat praised Abdel Shafi, saying he had taught him a great deal when Mr Erekat served as his deputy in the early 1990s.
He called him a man of "patriotism, decency, honour and vision".
Prominence
Abdel Shafi began his political career in the early 1960s after training as a doctor.
He was a member of the first PLO Executive Committee and was a leading figure in the Gaza Strip before it was occupied by Israel in 1967, when he was deported.
He returned in 1971 and founded the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, a role that earned him great respect.
He came to international prominence as the head of the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation at Madrid and subsequent peace talks in Washington.
But he resigned in 1993 after Arafat opened back-channel negotiations with Israel in Oslo, arguing that the interim peace accords failed to put restraints on Jewish settlement activity in the occupied territories.
He was elected to the post-Oslo parliament in the autonomous Palestinian Authority, but was also the first to resign from it saying it was powerless.
Following the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada in 2000, he urged the PA to organise resistance against Israel rather than distance itself from it and to form a unified leadership.
In 2002 he helped Mustapha Barghouthi found the Palestinian National Initiative, which campaigns as a democratic "third way" alternative to the main secular nationalist and religious Palestinian factions.
He is survived by his wife, four children and seven grandchildren.
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