Palestinian security chiefs today rejected President Yasser Arafat's choice for a new West Bank leader for their forces, increasing pressure on him as he faces intense US calls for reform.
Palestinian sources said more than 100 top security officials refused in a rancorous meeting near the West Bank city of Ramallah to accept Mr Arafat's appointment of Mr Zuhair Manasra as Preventive Security chief in place of Mr Jibril Rajoub.
While it was unlikely that the call from Rajoub loyalists would force Mr Arafat to retract his dismissal, the rejection was an unusual form of dissent against the Palestinian leader from within his own security services.
Many members of the international community have called on the Palestinian Authority to overhaul its institutions to root out alleged corruption and halt violence in a 21-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Israel and the United States have gone further, urging Palestinians to remove Mr Arafat in elections called for January next year. Mr Arafat is widely expected to be re-elected.
Mr Arafat has also removed Mr Mohammed Dahlan, head of the Preventive Security Service in the Gaza Strip, after vowing to streamline the Palestinian Authority's nine security services into four well-defined forces under a new Interior Minister.
It was not clear whether some of the dismissals were part of reform efforts or an internal power struggle.
Meanwhile Palestinian officials today condemned as "a crime" the reported shooting of a mother and her two-year-old daughter by Israeli fire south of Gaza City.
However an Israeli military spokesman denied there had been any shooting in the area. "There was no shooting in this sector," he said.
A 45-year-old Palestinian man was also killed in his home earlier Saturday when Israeli troops opened fire on houses in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical and security sources told AFP.
AFP