The Palestinians moved closer to forming a new cabinet Saturday after premier Ahmed Qorei gave in to veteran leader Yasser Arafat on his choice of interior minister, as Israeli troops killed four people in persistent violence in the territories.
Two of the dead were teenagers killed around the northern West Bank town of Jenin, as a large Israeli search operation conducted under military curfew met resistance from stonethrowers in both the town and its surrounding villages.
The compromise between Qorei and Arafat on the interior ministry was reached at a late-night meeting of their mainstream Fatah movement Friday.
The row between the two men over the key security portfolio had blocked the formation of a new government for days.
Qorei abandoned his preferred candidate for interior minister, General Nasr Yussef, in favour of close Arafat associate Hakam Balaawi, sources close to the Palestinian leader said.
But Balaawi's responsibilities will be limited to civil issues, while the all-important job of security will be handed to the Supreme National Security Council, of which both Arafat and Qorei are members.
The premier confirmed the compromise after an hour-long meeting with Arafat Saturday morning but stressed that the full details of the cabinet line-up had yet to be finalised.
"We reached agreement on the security question but the Fatah central committee still has to meet later today to finalize the composition of the cabinet."
Qorei is pressing for his rejected nominee for the interior ministry to be named one of four deputy prime ministers in the new cabinet, Fatah sources said.
The premier stressed that he had not surrendered security responsibility to Arafat altogether. It will be under "collective control," he told reporters.
Friday's compromise followed three days of fierce negotiations within the Fatah leadership.
The US State Department had said on Tuesday it wanted the Palestinian prime minister to have control of all Palestinian security forces.
The new and enlarged cabinet, which is expected to be submitted to the Palestinian Legislative Council Monday, will have around 20 members, including the seven ministers in Qorei's outgoing "emergency cabinet".
The crisis cabinet's term of office expired on Tuesday. Qorei was then made head of a "caretaker" government but Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayad said on Thursday the new arrangement was illegal.
Qorei replaced Mahmud Abbas as prime minister when the latter resigned in September after a similar power struggle with Arafat for control of the security services.
The two Palestinian youths killed in separate clashes in Jenin's refugee camp and the nearby village of Birkin, Palestinian security and medical sources said.
Another four youngsters were wounded in the two incidents, one of them a 10-year-old boy, they said.
The Israeli army maintained its curfew on both Jenin and nearby villages Saturday as it conducted house-to-house searches. Ten people were detained in the hamlet of Al-Yamun, residents said.
The army launched the operation Friday, swooping on Amjad al-Obeidi, 36, an Islamic Jihad leader accused by Israel of masterminding a suicide bombing which killed 21 people in the northern port of Haifa last month.
Overnight, troops demolished the house where Obeidi had been hiding in the latest use of the army's controversial policy of collective deterrence.
Palestinian sources said five homes had been destroyed in the dynamiting, leaving 40 people homeless.
Another two Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers overnight near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun, close to the fence separating Gaza from Israel, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
An army spokesman said troops had "spotted during the night two suspects crawling toward the fence, in a prohibited zone that has been the scene of numerous attacks.
"The soldiers opened fired and the two bodies were recovered Saturday morning," the source said, without saying whether arms or explosives had been found on them.
The deaths brought to 3,603 the number of people killed since the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian uprising, including 2,688 Palestinians and 849 Israelis.
Deep skepticism darkens hope of Palestinian peace delegates