One dead after blockade protests

Palestinian leaders want to broaden the uprising

Israeli soldiers have shot dead a Palestinian man in the West Bank town of Hebron, after what the Israeli army says was an exchange of fire.

The death followed clashes earlier in the day, when Israeli forces broke up demonstrations against their continuing blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In one incident, troops fired into the air and used tear gas against hundreds of Palestinian students, academics and journalists demonstrating near an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip.

You have Palestinians who prefer not to participate in a stone-throwing protest so we want to give them a chance to participate in other peaceful ways.

Marwan Barghouthi, West Bank Fatah leader

The Gaza protest followed a call by a Palestinian leader for more peaceful protests, as part of a new strategy to widen Palestinian participation in the six-month-old uprising, or intifada, against Israel.

Correspondents say it is also being seen as a move to keep the intifada going, as many Palestinians have started to question the way it is being managed and whether it will produce any results.

Strategy

The new strategy was set out by a prominent figure in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouthi, a leader of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

"Our aim is to strengthen the popular resistance with new means of struggle in order to sweep away the occupation and the settlers," Mr Barghouthi told Reuters news agency.

"You have Palestinians who prefer not to participate in a stone-throwing protest so we want to give them a chance to participate in other peaceful ways".

Palestinian intellectuals marched near an Israeli settlement in Gaza

But the BBC Middle East analyst, Roger Hardy, says there can be little doubt that the impetus for the call has come from the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

After six months of the intifada, he says there is a noticeable sense of fatigue among Palestinians.

There is still widespread resentment of Israeli actions, particularly its continuing blockade of large parts of the Palestinian territories.

Doubts

But Palestinians are increasingly questioning the way the intifada is being managed - and whether it will produce any political dividend.

Moreover Mr Arafat seems to be looking for ways of responding to the arrival on the scene of Ariel Sharon, the new Israeli prime minister.

Sit-down protest

Roger Hardy says Mr Arafat is also anxious to keep international attention focused on Palestinian grievances.

Peaceful protest is seen as more effective than armed struggle in the public relations struggle.

Even before Mr Barghouthi's call, there had been evidence of this new approach.

Earlier in March, Palestinians protesting at Israel's blockade of Ramallah tried to stop its military bulldozers from moving by sitting down in the road.

But Mr Barghouthi did not say whether his new initiative meant an end to Palestinian involvement in violence.

In the past six months, Palestinian actions against Israeli forces have included stone-throwing, shooting, bomb attacks and occasional mortar strikes.

For its part, Israel has used helicopter gunships and tanks in its crackdown on the uprising.