Two Palestinians killed in W. Bank barrier protest

Israeli forces killed two Palestinians protesting against Israel's West Bank barrier yesterday, the first fatalities in demonstrations over the controversial project now under World Court review.

In the Gaza Strip, two Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier at an industrial zone on the border that is a rare example of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation amid conflict. Israeli security personnel then shot the gunmen dead.

Witnesses in the West Bank village of Biddo said Israeli forces opened fire in a confrontation with stone-throwers, killing two Palestinians.

Hundreds of Palestinians took part in the protest over the start of construction of a section of the barrier at Biddo, and the demonstrations spread to two nearby villages.

Some of the protesters lay in front of Israeli bulldozers preparing the ground for the barrier, which is being built through villagers' fields.

"It was a very violent confrontation and six security personnel were injured," a military source said. "To the best of our knowledge our forces responded only with tear gas and rubber bullets. We are investigating the reported fatalities."

The two men killed in Biddo were the first to die in sporadic demonstrations in the past few months against the West Bank barrier, a project Israel says keeps suicide bombers out of its cities and which Palestinians call a land grab.

At the behest of the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice held three days of hearings in The Hague this week into the legality of the barrier, which snakes into Israeli-occupied land Palestinians want for a state.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, armed groups in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for what they called a "martyrdom operation" at the Erez border crossing in the Gaza Strip.

The early morning attack, which an Israeli security source said wounded at least two other Israelis, coincided with the first meetings in three years of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, a key decision-making body, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Participants said possible dissolution of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - which has been behind suicide bombings in Israel that Palestinian leaders say harms a struggle for statehood - could come up in a reform debate which was set for yesterday and today.

A statement from the brigades that blared through loudspeakers in Gaza City called the Erez attack "a response to the continued Zionist terrorism against our people and a reaction to those who want to dismantle us".

But dismantling the brigades, made up of armed cells, appeared unlikely, and some in Fatah believe the group bolsters Mr Arafat's mainstream movement against the power of Islamic militant organisations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops blocked entry to Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah ahead of a meeting of Fatah at the badly damaged complex, witnesses said. Israeli security sources said soldiers were on an arrest mission and were not targetting the "Muqata".