by Adel Zaanoun
GAZA CITY, July 23 (AFP) - Violence flared in the Gaza Strip as three Palestinians were killed, including two Islamic militants, and fresh protests erupted against Yasser Arafat's appointment of his cousin as local security chief.
A Palestinian teenager was killed Friday morning in Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, as he and other residents were protesting against militants attempting to plant a roadside bomb to blow up Israeli armor, several witnesses said.
The sources said Hassan al-Zaanin has been killed by Palestinian fire.
They said residents feared that an anti-Israeli attack would lead to harsh and collective army reprisals.
But security sources said the youth had been killed by Israeli troops that indiscriminately opened fire at both the gunmen and the angry residents.
Israeli troops took over Beit Hanun late last month after a rocket attack from there killed two people in southern Israel, just a few miles (kilometres) across the Gaza border.
The army has vowed to stop militants from using Beit Hanun as a launchpad for firing rockets and bulldozed agricultural fields where attackers typically hid.
Palestinian security sources and the army both said that land levelling had been stepped up in the past few days.
Late Thursday night in Gaza, two Palestinian militants including a leader of the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad were killed in an Israeli air strike, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
An army spokesman said "an aerial operation succeeded in killing Hazem Arhim, who was preparing a large-scale (anti-Israeli) attack in the coming days."
Arhim, 27, of Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigade had been sought by Israeli forces for alleged involvement in several attacks. The other militant was identified as Rauf Abu Afi.
In May, Arhim walked through the steets of Gaza City with what he said were the remains of six Israeli soldiers who had been killed.
The army said Arhim organized suicide bombings and was responsible for other attacks against targets in Israel or on soldiers and settlers in the Gaza Strip.
Islamic Jihad said the two militants were traveling in the eastern Zeitun area of Gaza City when rockets fired by helicopters detroyed their vehicle.
Also in Gaza City, several thousand demonstrators flanked by masked gunmen took to the streets to protest Arafat's appointment of his cousin Musa as security chief in the Gaza Strip.
The angry crowd had rallied late Thursday in response to a call from the radical Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and from a section of Arafat's Fatah movement.
The Brigades are loosely affiliated to the mainstream Fatah.
"Try the symbols of corruption before the people tries them," they chanted.
Violent protests erupted last weekend after Arafat appointed Musa as the new overall head of general security following a breakdown in order and a string of kidnappings in Gaza.
Demonstrators led by the Brigades then denounced him as the epitome of corruption.
Reacting to the protests, Arafat announced Monday that Musa would only head up the general security branch in the Gaza Strip, rather than the whole of the Palestinian territories as initially indicated.
In other violence, an Israeli soldier guarding a northern West Bank Jewish settlement was wounded before dawn Friday by a Palestinian gunman who was trying to infiltrate the community, Israeli military sources said.
The militant opened fire on an army post at the entrance of Shavei Shomron. Troops fired back but the attacker managed to flee.
The soldier, whose condition was said not to be life threatening, was evacuated to hospital.
The army also said it nabbed wanted Fatah militant Mohammed Abu Khusa, in the southern West Bank, over his alleged participation in deadly anti-Israeli attacks.