RAMALLAH, Aug 20: The brother of a top Palestinian militant was shot dead in a firefight in Ramallah on Tuesday, just hours after Israeli troops pulled out from Bethlehem in a key test of confidence-building measures aimed at tackling the 23-month crisis.

Mohammed Saadat, 22, brother of Ahmad Saadat, the jailed head of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was shot seven times as he tried to resist an Israeli special unit trying to capture him outside his Ramallah home.

The shootout, which left an unknown number of Israeli soldiers injured, capped a day which saw two other Palestinians and an Israeli soldier killed, marring the cautious optimism that surrounded Israel’s pullback from Bethlehem, occupied for two months.

Under the “Gaza, Bethlehem First” plan agreed on Sunday, Israeli forces moved out of Bethlehem, which had been re-occupied in mid-June along with almost all of the West Bank after a spate of suicide bombings.

Both sides say the move is a first step in a gradual withdrawal aimed at easing tensions, alleviating the plight of the Palestinian population at large and eventually reviving the comatose peace process.

The plan is the most significant security measure in almost a year, and foresees a progressive Israeli withdrawal from land it has re-occupied during the intifada.

There was little sign of celebration, however, among residents of the town. As Palestinian police returned to the beat, Israeli forces remained on the edge of town, able to move back in swiftly should the security experiment fail.

Israel fears that a single suicide bomber slipping through a roadblock to occupied Al Quds, just a few kilometres to the north, would leave this initiative, like all it predecessors, in tatters.

Palestinian officials said about 100 Palestinian police had arrived in a convoy of about a dozen jeeps from nearby Jericho, the only main West Bank town not reoccupied by Israel.

The plan was thrashed out during talks on Sunday night between Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Palestinian interior minister Abdel Razaq al-Yahya.

Ben Eliezer described it as a confidence-building move that could open the way for future political and security talks. “The steps are essential as a starting point for the future political and security process,” he said.

If the plan works, it would be extended to other areas, starting with Gaza and nearby Al Khalil, but hardline Palestinian groups have vowed to thwart it.

Aside from Tuesday’s Ramallah shooting, a 19-year-old Israeli soldier was killed by a sniper in an exchange of fire near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian teenager was later shot dead by the Israeli army near the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, opposite the Morag settlement.

A Palestinian militant from the Al-Aqsa Martys Brigades, a hardline offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, was also killed and three other Palestinians injured during clashes which erupted during an Israeli attack on a refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem.

An Israeli army spokesman said around 15 wanted Palestinians had been arrested during the operation, which lasted several hours.

In nearby Jenin, four Palestinian teenagers and an Irish woman peace activist were injured by gunfire as Israeli troops pushed into the town, Palestinian medics said.

Radical Palestinian groups, including the Al Aqsa Martyrs, have rejected the Bethlehem-Gaza withdrawal deal, saying the plan aimed at sapping their strength, and vowed to press on with attacks and scuttle the truce initiative. —AFP