A spokesman for Ziad Abu Ein, the minister in charge of organizing resistance against Israeli settlements, said he was struck by an Israeli soldier before he died. Doctors confirmed his death at Ramallah Hospital and said he was brought in after inhaling tear gas, hospital official Ahmed Bitawi said.

The Israeli military said it was reviewing the circumstances of Abu Ein's death and that an Israeli pathologist would join a Jordanian team examining the body. Israel has proposed a joint investigation of the incident in the village of Turmus Aya near Ramallah, it said.

Abu Ein's death comes at a time of heightened frictions between Israel and the Palestinians, whose latest attempts at peacemaking broke down in April. Clashes with troops erupted in Turmus Aya and in the Jalazon refugee camp near the Israeli settlement of Beit El, Palestinian media reported.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Abu Ein was killed in a "barbaric act" and "we can't remain silent," according to a statement posted by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa. Abbas declared a three-day mourning period, according to a statement from his office.

Conflicting Accounts

The Israeli military and witnesses gave conflicting accounts of events leading up to Abu Ein's death. The military said about 200 rioters had gathered in Turmus Aya, and that troops had halted their progress into a Jewish settler outpost using riot dispersal means.

People who attended the protest said Palestinians had gathered peacefully to plant trees to stake their claim to West Bank land.

Palmedia cameraman Fadi Zuneit said soldiers blocked activists from planting trees, and had pushed Abu Ein and kicked him in the legs and chest. They fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, and the minister collapsed as the activists scattered, he said.

"This will have severe consequences," said Mohamed Hawash, a political science lecturer at Birzeit University. "This will drive people to be more steadfast in their commitment to their land and work intensively with the popular resistance."

Abu Ein was formerly the Palestinian Authority's deputy minister of prisoners' affairs, and a member of the Revolutionary Council of Abbas's Fatah party.

Hamas, the militant Islamic group that rules the Gaza Strip, condemned Abu Ein's death, saying it sent a call to all Palestinians "to resist the criminal Zionist occupation."