HIGHLIGHTS: Protest Directed at Ouster as well as Replacement by a Political Appointment||Dahlan's Removal Paves Way to Streamline PA's Nine security Services into 4 Well-defined forces Under New Interior Minister||Egyptian Officials Expected for Talks in Ramallah Sunday||French Foreign Minister in Syria, on 2nd Leg of a Mideast Tour||Calls for Revenge at Mother-Daughter Funeral in Gaza|| STORY: Palestinian security chiefs rejected on Saturday Yasser Arafat's choice for a new West Bank leader for their forces, increasing pressure on the Palestinian president at home as he faces intense U.S. calls for reform. (Read photo caption)

Palestinian sources said more than 100 top security officials refused in a rancorous meeting near the West Bank city of Ramallah to accept Arafat's appointment of Zuhair Manasra as Preventive Security chief in place of Jibril Rajoub.

While it was unlikely that the call from Rajoub loyalists would force Arafat to retract his dismissal, the rejection was an unusual form of dissent against the Palestinian leader from within his own security services.

Salah Tamaizi, head of Preventive Security in Ramallah, said the opposition was directed not just at the ouster of Rajoub, who has often been cited as a potential successor to Arafat, but at his replacement by a political appointment. Manasra was formerly the governor of the West Bank city of Jenin.

"We hope that our leader President Arafat will change his mind about Rajoub, and even if he wants to replace Jibril, he should choose someone from within the ranks of the Preventive Security force," Tamaizi told Reuters.

Many members of the international community have called on the Palestinian Authority to overhaul its institutions to root out alleged corruption and halt violence in a 21-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

Israel and the United States have gone further, urging the Palestinian people to replace Arafat as their leader in elections called for January next year. Arafat is widely expected to be re-elected.

Arafat has also removed Mohammed Dahlan, head of the Preventive Security Service in the Gaza Strip, after vowing to streamline the Palestinian Authority's nine security services into four well-defined forces under a new Interior Minister.

It was not clear whether some of the dismissals were part of reform efforts or an internal power struggle.

Both Rajoub and Dahlan were veteran members of the Palestinian negotiating team during U.S.-brokered peace talks with Israel and popular at home.

EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS EXPECTED FOR TALKS

In the latest international effort to resolve the Middle East crisis, a political source in Jerusalem said Omar Suleiman, head of Egypt's intelligence agency, and Osama el-Baz, adviser to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, would arrive on Sunday for talks in Israel and with Palestinian Authority officials.

Asked by reporters in Egypt about the two envoys' trip, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said: "It comes within the framework of attempts to get out of this standoff, which was created by Israeli policies."

Mubarak said earlier this month he would send envoys to boost President Bush's two-state solution to the conflict while disagreeing with his call for a change of leader.

CALLS FOR REVENGE AT MOTHER-DAUGHTER FUNERAL

Tensions continued to run high on Saturday, where some 6,000 Palestinians in south Gaza cried for revenge at the funeral of Randa al-Hindi, and her daughter Nur, 2, whom Palestinian officials said were shot by Israeli soldiers earlier in the day.

A Palestinian man in his 40s was also shot dead while walking in Khan Younis late on Friday.

Some 900 people from various Palestinian factions also marched in Gaza City to demand the release of several leaders whom Israel is holding for what it says is their role in planning attacks on Israelis in the uprising.

FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER IN SYRIA

Meanwhile, and on another front, France's foreign minister arrived Saturday in Syria where he planned to have talks on the Arab-Israeli conflict and deliver a message from President Jacques Chirac to Syrian leader Bashar Assad.

Dominique de Villepin came to Syria from Lebanon, where he called for the creation of a viable Palestinian state. Only a political solution based on the rights of all parties could bring "a just and permanent peace" to the Middle East, he said.

PHOTO CAPTION

(Top) Palestinians hold portraits of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat (L) and fired Preventive Security chief Jibril Rajoub in Hebron July 6, 2002. Palestinian security chiefs rejected Arafat's choice for a new West Bank security chief, squeezing the Palestinian leader at home as he faces intense U.S. pressure for reform. (Loay Abu Haykel/Reuters)
(Bottom) During the traditional ceremony prior to the funeral, mourners pray in the presence of the bodies of 44-year-old Randa Hindi and her 2-year-old daughter Noor, at the mosque in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis, Saturday, July 6, 2002. According to Palestinian sources they were killed Saturday morning by Israeli tank fire while riding in a taxi in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo