Israeli soldiers shoot dead Palestinian in West Bank

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank on Wednesday during an operation to arrest his brother, a wanted militant, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

Israeli military sources said soldiers opened fire after being shot at. The incident followed a claim of responsibility from Islamic militants in Jenin for a suicide bombing that killed an Israeli woman on Monday, violating a 10-day-old truce.

Palestinian security sources said Israeli forces entered the village of Burqin close to Jenin early on Wednesday, burst into a Palestinian home and arrested a 22-year-old militant. The sources said that moments later soldiers fired at the neighboring home of the militant's 27-year-old brother, who they said was shot and killed while looking out a window. They said the man's wife was shot in the head and seriously wounded.

Meanwhile The Guardian reported that the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, resigned from the central committee of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and called off a meeting with Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, amid a rebellion within the Palestinian leadership over his handling of negotiations with the Israelis.

But Mr Arafat initially refused to accept the resignation and the committee - the political backbone of the Palestinian Authority - went into a crisis meeting that could resolve the power struggle over the fate of the US-led road map to peace, which brought Mr Abbas to power.

The crisis, which flared at a Fatah central committee meeting on Monday evening, has been brought to a head by Mr Abbas's failure to secure the release of the bulk of 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands. They include more than 1,000 detained without trial, among them children.

At the weekend, Mr Sharon's cabinet reluctantly voted to free fewer than 400 people but then set conditions, ruled out the release of members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, and said the process would not begin for weeks.

Palestinian anger was compounded by one of Mr Sharon's ministers, Avgidor Lieberman, who opposed the releases by saying he would be happy to drown the prisoners in the Dead Sea.

Palestinian sources said Mr Abbas faced a barrage of criticism at the Fatah central committee meeting.

Members accused him of giving too much ground to the Israelis in return for very little and of bowing to every American demand, including White House pressure not to make a public furore over Mr Sharon's failure to keep to his commitment to dismantle illegal Jewish outposts in the West Bank. More than one member demanded that Mr Abbas resign.

Yesterday, officials close to Mr Abbas said he postponed a meeting with Mr Sharon scheduled for today in protest at the failure to release more detainees.

A senior Palestinian official, who declined to be named, accused the Israeli government of deliberately jeopardising the US-led road map to peace.

"The Israelis surely understand the importance of the prisoner issue to our public, so we can only think they are playing games with us," he said. "From the beginning we have said this process will only work when the Palestinian people have something to show for it. Abu Mazen has said the intifada is over, he has brought Hamas and Islamic Jihad into a ceasefire, he is doing everything the Americans want.

The crisis over the prisoner release has compounded a slide in Palestinian public support for Mr Abbas which began to slump at last month's summit with President George Bush and Mr Sharon when Mr Abbas renounced the intifada.

"Abu Mazen's position is very rocky," said a senior Palestinian official. "He's appointed, not elected. Public support is falling and that matters because what they think of Abu Mazen is what they think of the road map."