RAMALLAH, 27 February 2004 — 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.

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.

Meanwhile, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades 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 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.”

Israel Blocks Entrance to Arafat HQ

Israeli Army jeeps blocked entry to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah yesterday for the first time in a year, witnesses said.

They said soldiers checked the identity of people entering and leaving the “Muqata,” which was badly damaged in an Israeli assault near the start of more than three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The soldiers left about eight hours later, they said.

It was the first time in a year that the army had taken such measures at the partially demolished complex where Arafat has been confined by Israel.