THE MIDDLE EAST: In what would be a sign of fading authority, the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, may be forced to promote Mr Jibril Rajoub, the powerful West Bank security chief he sacked last week, and cancel the appointment of the man he named as Mr Rajoub's successor.
Meanwhile, Israel is investigating the deaths of a Palestinian woman and her baby daughter in the Gaza Strip on Saturday - said by Palestinian sources to have been killed by army gunfire. In Gaza yesterday, the army foiled what it said was an attempt by two gunmen to carry out a suicide-bombing in Israel.
In an apparent indication of his improving fortunes, Mr Rajoub was invited by Mr Arafat to attend talks at the PA leader's battered Ramallah headquarters last night with Mr Omar Suliman, the visiting head of Egypt's General Intelligence Agency.
Mr Suliman was earlier said to have expressed dismay at the dismissal of Mr Rajoub, who was viewed by Cairo as a stabilising influence.
Yesterday morning, hundreds of men from Mr Rajoub's Preventative Security Apparatus marched in Hebron to demand that he be given an "appropriate" new role high in the PA's security hierarchy. Holding portraits of Mr Rajoub, but also remembering to periodically chant support for Mr Arafat, the marchers also rejected the choice of Mr Zuhair Manasra, governor of the West Bank city of Jenin, as Mr Rajoub's successor.
Mr Arafat has presented Mr Rajoub's removal as a move towards the overhaul of the security services demanded by the Bush administration. But the PA president is widely believed to perceive Mr Rajoub as a threat, and aides to Mr Arafat have been publicly critical of him over the past three months, since he negotiated what was depicted as the inglorious surrender of Hamas activists wanted by Israel, who were holed up in his security headquarters on the outskirts of Ramallah in the early days of the Operation Defensive Shield offensive.
Mr Rajoub is well regarded by Washington, and is considered by Israel to be a moderate - someone who demanded for years that Mr Arafat give him the green light to thwart suicide bombers and who has spoken out consistently against attacks inside sovereign Israel.
Mr Rajoub said this weekend that he neither sought his old job back nor intended to accept Mr Arafat's suggestion that he trade places with Mr Manasra and become Jenin's governor. However, he also said that he had spoken with Mr Manasra and "asked him to pass up the appointment, and allow the president and the commanders of security forces to sort out this issue".
Some Palestinian sources claimed last night that Mr Arafat has now frozen Mr Manasra's appointment, and that he may bow to pressure and offer Mr Rajoub the post of deputy interior minister, which would put him in effective control of all the security forces in the West Bank and Gaza - a promotion.
During meetings with Israeli officials, Mr Suliman said he rejected the Israeli-American talk of ousting Mr Arafat and urged that the Palestinians be given hope of a fair political settlement. In similar vein, the US National Security Adviser, Ms Condoleezza Rice, pressed Mr Sharon in a telephone call to ease restrictions on the Palestinians.
In Gaza, Palestinian sources said that Ms Randa al-Hindi (42), and her two-year-old daughter, Nur, were killed by Israeli army fire en route from Khan Younis to Gaza City on Saturday evening.