The chunky young man in Ramallah's al-Manara Square knew exactly where his anger was directed today – and it wasn't at the Palestinian negotiating team for the generous concessions it had offered to Israel.

Jutting his head towards a tall office block which houses the most popular television station in the West Bank, and giving his name as Jimi, he said: "These are false allegations. Al-Jazeera should be destroyed."

Not long afterwards, about 50 protesters made a limited attempt to do just that by smashing windows and security cameras and attempting to gain entry to the seventh-floor TV studios. They were swiftly stopped by the Palestinian Authority's ubiquitous security men.

Outside, others – instructed to protest by Fatah, the party that dominates the PA – were busy with marker pens and spray paint. "Al-Jazeera = Israel" in bright blue paint decorated the pavement; signs saying "Al-Jazeera are collaborators" and "Al-Jazeera sponsors Arab division" hung on railings.

Some of those in and around Manara Square said they were afraid to speak to the press. But Naser al-Alaydi, 63, dressed in a smart suit and with a neat goatee, was willing to be frank. Describing himself as a moderate independent, he said the disclosures in the Palestine papers were "very painful for us". "We made concessions already, and we will never do more than that. What's really important for us is Jerusalem – not just for Palestinians but for the whole Arab world."

In Gaza, anger was focused on the Ramallah-based negotiators. "I couldn't believe my eyes when I watched it. This is cheating to Palestinian people," said Maher Mohammad, 50, a tailor in Gaza City. "Jerusalem is a holy land, nobody can make concessions regarding it, because it's not for Palestinians only but for all Muslims."

Ayman Dwima, 38, wanted more transparency. "The PA is required to be more honest, first with itself, then with Palestinian people, and not to hide anything. The PA is playing alone. It has to make unity with Hamas, because it represents at least half of the population, and this will give the strength to the Palestinian negotiator."

But whatever the views on the street, the key players were sticking to their line. Some of the reports "misrepresented our positions"; others were "patently false", Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, said in a statement. "Any accurate representation of our positions will show that we have consistently stood by our people's basic rights and international legal principles.

"Indeed, our position has been the same for the past 19 years of negotiations: we seek to establish a sovereign and independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and to reach a just solution to the refugee issue based on their international legal rights, including those set out in UNGA 194."

The news stories were "a distortion of the truth", "a propaganda game … to brainwash Palestinian citizens", said Yasser Abed Rabbo, speaking on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organisation at a press conference in Ramallah.

Speaking to journalists in Cairo, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said the public had been misled by the reports. "We say very clearly, we do not have secrets."

A senior Hamas official, Salah Bardaweel, told the Guardian that the Islamist organisation was studying the leaked documents before announcing its "final position". But, he added, "the problem now is not between Hamas and Fatah, it's between the Palestinian people and the Palestinian negotiators."

On the other side of the negotiating table, the Israelis were largely keeping quiet today, perhaps so as not to distract from the Palestinians' discomfort in the media spotlight.

But Avigdor Lieberman, the hardline foreign minister, offered a region-wide perspective on the disclosures. "The central problem of the Middle East is not settlements, but rather the extreme Muslim radicals that threaten regional stability," he said during a visit to London. "The recent events in Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq are not connected to the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The true threat to the Palestinian Authority's leadership is not Israel, but Hamas and jihad."

Additional reporting by Hazem Balousha in Gaza City

What they said

Today it is … clear that the process did not fail and was not exhausted. It did not end, but was not allowed to ripen until an agreement was reached because of elections in Israel and this government's choice not to continue the negotiations. I was discreet throughout the negotiations over the course of many months, in order to increase the chances of an agreement, even at a personal political cost … A peace agreement that will end the conflict and protect the national and security interests of Israel is possible. Tzipi Livni, former Israeli foreign minister

In the past few hours, a number of reports have surfaced regarding our positions in our negotiations with Israel, many of which have misrepresented our positions, taking statements and facts out of context. Other allegations circulated in the media have been patently false. Saeb Erekat, chief PLO negotiator

The documents revealed by al-Jazeera are much more important than the documents recently released by WikiLeaks. The former document the talks that took place in 2008 between the head of the Palestinian negotiating team and then foreign minister Tzipi Livni, as well as with American officials, which is not just a chapter in history. Akiva Eldar, Haaretz

The problem facing Abbas and Erekat as they try to discredit the documents being rolled out in the coming week is that the peace process in which they have invested all their political capital is itself so palpably moribund as to corrode their credibility. Tony Karon, Time magazine