Changing the Guard

It was clear from the start how Ammar Shawa, 12, died. His family was posing for photographs with newly arrived Palestinian soldiers in Jericho when one of them allowed Ammar's 13-year-old brother to handle a loaded AK-47 rifle. It went off, accidentally, and the bullet shattered the younger boy's head. Immediately, local activists of the Palestine Liberation Organization put out a story to townsfolk that withdrawing Israeli soldiers had deliberately left the rifle behind to cause an accident. Later they said that an Arab collaborating with Israel had given the boy the gun, and then that ammunition left by the Israelis had exploded and caused the fatal accident. Only a few hours later, the P.L.O. came clean: one of its men was to blame, the organization said, and he had been arrested and jailed.

The story illustrates two phenomena: how Palestinians automatically blame Israel for trouble of any kind, and how they are beginning to unlearn the reflex that has become so deeply ingrained. Says Sa'eb Erakat, a leading P.L.O. figure in Jericho: "It is a huge transition that we must make in our mentality."

The difficult metamorphosis began in earnest last week when the Israelis completed their withdrawal from two enclaves of Palestinian self-rule, one surrounding Jericho in the West Bank, the other covering most of the Gaza Strip. In both areas, civilian affairs were turned over to P.L.O. control, as was public order and safety. To replace the occupying forces, some 3,000 Palestinian troops, arriving from exile mostly in Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, were put to work as soldiers and policemen -- a force that is to eventually grow to 9,000.

In the Gaza Strip there was trouble from the start. As Israeli soldiers pulled out of their last outpost in the city of Gaza, they were pelted with stones by Palestinian demonstrators. Yet stones could prove to be the least of Israel's problems. Under the self-rule agreement, about 5,000 Jewish settlers remain in the Gaza Strip. They are protected by Israeli soldiers and -- at least in theory -- by P.L.O. forces against Palestinian militants, especially Muslim extremists who remain opposed to peace with Israel. After the turnover, Jewish settlers were fired at and wounded on four occasions in the Gaza Strip; in a drive-by attack, militants killed two Israeli soldiers manning a roadblock just inside the zone.

Guarding the roads on which the settlers and other Israelis travel through the autonomous regions is the task of joint Israeli-Palestinian patrols. In the strip, the Israelis complained, such missions were scarcely functioning -- because, they said, Palestinian security men were not showing up. A high- ranking Israeli military officer characterized the situation as "almost total anarchy."

By contrast, calm prevailed in Jericho, a generally peaceful town where militants have never gained a foothold. There, 730 Palestinian peacekeepers found themselves directing traffic and helping tidy up the city. "They are highly professional and give people a sense of security," said Emad Barahmeh, a Jericho shopkeeper. An Israeli lieutenant colonel concurred: "I have only compliments for their performance."