OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 7 July — Palestinian security officials rejected yesterday President Yasser Arafat’s choice for a new West Bank preventive security chief as Israeli troops killed three Palestinians in the occupied areas.
Palestinian sources said some 600 top security officials refused in a rancorous meeting near the West Bank city of Ramallah to accept Arafat’s appointment of Zuhair Manasra as preventive security chief in place of Jibril Rajoub.
Arafat later met with eight security officers challenging his sacking of Rajoub.
The officers seeing Arafat at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah presented to the Palestinian leader three options they believe are acceptable, a representative of the protesting security force members, Capt. Sabri Tamaizi, told AFP. One, promote Rajoub; two, dismiss the West Bank strongman’s successor Zuhair Manasra; or reinstate Rajoub to his old post, he said.
The eight officers emerged from the two-hour meeting saying they remained loyal to him, but had made it clear they wanted Rajoub appointed to another post "at least as important," Tamaizi, told AFP.
Some 600 Rajoub loyalists earlier met in Beitunia, a village outside Ramallah, and "decided not to cooperate with the new chief of preventive security appointed by President Arafat," said Tamaizi.
He said the opposition was directed not just at the ouster of Rajoub, who has often been cited as a potential successor to Arafat, but at his replacement by a political appointment.
Manasra was formerly the governor of the West Bank city of Jenin.
"We hope that our leader President Arafat will change his mind about Rajoub, and even if he wants to replace him, he should choose someone from within the ranks of the preventive security force," Tamaizi told Reuters.
The supporters of Rajoub made clear they would not work with Rajoub’s successor. An official in Arafat’s office played down any suggestion that the decision amounted to a rebellion.
"It’s not very important. It’s not a rebellion or whatever," her said.
In Hebron, some 200 members of the preventive security held a meeting instead of a support rally for Rajoub, which has now been postponed until today, a participant at the meeting said.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian woman, Randa Al-Hindi, 40, and her two-year-old daughter Nour near Gaza City yesterday when they opened fire on their car.
Earlier, they killed a Palestinian man. Some 6,000 angry Palestinians buried the three dead calling on Palestinian groups to take revenge for their deaths.
