OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 8 August — The Palestinian Authority agreed to an Israeli security plan yesterday even as six Palestinians were gunned down by Israeli forces.

The Palestinian Cabinet gave initial approval in a meeting in Ramallah to an Israeli proposal to ease some restrictions on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in a trial gesture to restore security cooperation.

After the "Gaza-first" stage, Israel would start to pull its forces out of reoccupied West Bank cities once violence ebbs. Some Palestinian officials have opposed the move, saying Israel should first withdraw troops from Ramallah, the West Bank city where President Yasser Arafat is based.

"There is preliminary approval," Minister Nabil Shaath said after Arafat and ministers discussed the idea. He said some issues still had to be discussed and Israeli and Palestinian officials would meet for the second time this week later.

The approval came as an Israeli general said the army had prepared plans to restore Israel’s military administration in the West Bank, which it has reoccupied since mid-June. "The army should be prepared for any scenario, and this is why we have elaborated a plan to restore military administration if the situation on the ground further deteriorates," Yitzhak Eitan, head of the central command, which includes the West Bank, told public radio.

"This could involve a reoccupation (of the Palestinian territories), but we do not want that," he added.

Israeli undercover soldiers killed four Palestinian activists and wounded another three in a building in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, an Israeli military spokesman said. Palestinian residents said one those killed was a local resistance leader.

In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli sniper shot dead Hussam Hamdan, 27, a senior member of the military wing of Hamas.

Earlier, a Palestinian policeman was killed when Israeli troops backed by 30 tanks and helicopters pushed two kilometers into a Palestinian-ruled area of northern Gaza. The tanks shelled houses as the choppers covered them, witnesses said.

Senior Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantissi, vowing revenge for Hamdan’s death, said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should now be killed. Hamdan had escaped two previous Israeli attempts against his life. "I demand and urge the military apparatus of Hamas to target...Sharon personally and to target his house and his son," Rantissi said.

In Bethlehem, Israeli forces detained Yehya Damsa, the commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank city.