"I present you with these amendments in addition to what you have already approved," Arafat

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, March 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Israeli occupation forces killed Tuesday, March 18, a Palestinian activist in southern Bethlehem in the West Bank, as the Palestinian Parliament passed a bill creating a new Prime Minister's post after reaching a compromise with President Yasser Arafat over changes he had introduced.

Yussef Ibrahim al-Fakih, 42, died in an exchange of fire with the Israeli forces that had surrounded and subsequently demolished his house in the village of Mrah Rabah, Palestinian security sources said.

The Israeli army said in a statement that the firefight left a reserve technical sergeant dead and another reserve soldier injured, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In the Gaza Strip, hospital sources said earlier Nabil Idwidal, 20, had died of wounds sustained in a bloody Israeli raid on the Nusseirat refugee camp near Gaza City early Monday, March 17.

He was the eighth victim of the Israeli incursion, which also killed a three-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy.

The latest deaths brought to 3,100 the number of people killed since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada against Israeli occupation at the end of September 2,000, including 2,325 Palestinians and 717 Israelis.

In the past 18 days, 100 people have died, 76 Palestinians, 22 Israelis, including two shot mistakenly by soldiers, an American girl killed in Haifa and a U.S. peace activist crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to stop it demolishing a house in the Gaza Strip.

Arafat Conceded

On the political ground, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) voted by 69 votes in favor to none against, with one abstention, to appoint the premier with powers defined in a landmark session last week.

The parliament had adjourned on Monday after Arafat loyalists failed to push through an amended version of the law under which Arafat would have the right to hire or fire ministers.

Under the Tuesday compromise , an interpretative memorandum was attached to the bill stipulating that any new cabinet would be presented to the head of the Palestinian Authority, officials said.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has scrapped changes he made to a bill defining the powers of a new prime minister, deputies said.

"The Palestinian president has dropped this demand and the parliament will meet Tuesday morning in Ramallah to definitively adopt the bill on the prime minister," Kaddura Fares, a deputy from Arafat's Fatah movement said before the meeting.

Arafat had wanted to amend the prime minister's powers to allow the Palestinian leader to have the final say on the hiring and firing of cabinet ministers.

Reformers within Fatah earlier Monday challenged the changes Arafat made to the bill and parliament speaker Ahmed Qurei said the debate would resume Tuesday after Arafat supporters failed to rally enough votes in favour of change.

Arafat loyalists played down the snub, as Washington and London praised the move towards appointing a premier and offered sweeteners to hasten the reform, seen as essential to overhauling the much-criticized and marginalizing Arafat.

The appointment of the new premier is seen as a key change in reforming the Palestinian administration, set up under the 1993 Oslo peace accords, but in a state of collapse after 29 months of bitter Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Arafat made an unscheduled brief address to the assembly after summoning members to his headquarters.

"I present you with these amendments in addition to what you have already approved. I don't know whether you will like them but I believe they will strengthen what you have so far."

He said that under the new draft the leader and prime minister should have their "own powers, but the main thing is that both will be complementary to each other."

His argument failed to sway the reformers, including those within his own Fatah movement.

Fatah deputy Qadura Fares said the assembly should not approve changes made by Arafat, which would allow him to retain more power than had previously been agreed.

"We are coming here to approve what we introduced earlier. I don't believe any changes should be made now. So far we have given the impression of being serious and moving ahead and it would not be in our interests to retreat," Fares said.

"I think we should fight these new introductions."

Last week, the assembly overwhelmingly approved a first draft of the premiership bill, giving the prime minister control over domestic and internal security issues but leaving foreign policy and national security in Arafat's hands.

Mahmud Abbas, the second-in-command of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has been nominated as premier but has not said whether the powers attached to the post will be enough to lure him into accepting the job, which he wants to use to launch substantive reforms.

In a bid to boost the cause of reform, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday, March 16, said he would invite the new premier to Washington for talks, by far the most generous offer made by the U.S. administration in months.

And U.S. President George W. Bush said he would publish a long-awaited peace roadmap outlining the steps to Palestinian statehood once the premier was in office, in a step wisely seen as allurement to the Arab street critical of Bush's turning up heat on Iraq while ignoring a settlement to the long-standing Middle east crisis.