Jewish Settler Slain in West Bank : Mideast: Daughter of leading rabbi was traveling with family members. Gunmen fired from oncoming vehicle. Palestinians suspected.

JERUSALEM — A 20-year-old Jewish settler was shot to death Friday in the occupied West Bank as gunmen, apparently Palestinian radicals, opened fire on the car in which she was traveling with her brother-in-law and his two young daughters on a weekend visit to the children’s grandmother.

Ofra Felix, the daughter of Rabbi Menahem Felix, a veteran leader of Jewish settlers on the West Bank, was hit by half a dozen bullets as the gunmen fired an assault rifle from an oncoming car on the heavily traveled highway.

Her brother-in-law, Amichai Remmer, 24, of Jerusalem, was wounded in the hand and shoulder; the two girls, ages 3 and 4, were not hurt.

Israeli soldiers poured into the area, about seven miles north of Ramallah, setting up roadblocks and beginning an intensive search for the gunmen.

Angry Jewish settlers scuffled with a Worldwide Television News camera crew, breaking their camera. A producer vehemently denied the settlers’ charges that the crew had interfered with emergency treatment of the victims.

Middle East Broadcasting Center correspondent Maher Shalabi said settlers stole a television camera worth $40,000 from his crew after it had been set on the ground while soldiers checked his crew before allowing it to approach the scene.

Ofra Felix’s death is certain to heighten tensions in the West Bank, where Palestinians demonstrated again Friday to protest what they call Israeli theft of their farmland and where Israeli security forces have been hunting down members of radical groups opposed to the peace agreement signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“Terrorists are able to shoot at women and babies freely, and this must be stopped,” said Pinhas Wallerstein, chairman of the settlers’ local council. “The army must send in more troops and stop these murders. For the government to think of redeployment (out of Palestinian towns and villages) is not just madness but criminal.”

Security for the 120,000 West Bank settlers is the major factor for Israel in its negotiations with the PLO on extending the peace agreement through Palestinian elections and the pullback of Israeli forces in the region.

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For the settlers, Ofra Felix’s death was a particularly heavy blow. Her father was a leader of the Gush Emunim settlement movement in the 1970s and 1980s and helped found Elon Moreh near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Palestinians, however, say the very presence of so many settlers in the region will be a constant source of tension, and PLO negotiators have accused Israel of failing to stop expansion of the 144 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

On Friday, several hundred Palestinians from the village Kufr Labad marched on the settlement of Avnei Hefetz near the West Bank town of Tulkarm in continuing protests against the allocation of traditional communal land to Jewish settlements.

Monitored closely by Israeli troops, the villagers planted olive trees on the rocky hillsides below Avnei Hefetz and dispersed at army orders. The Jewish settlers, guns over their shoulders, then uprooted all of the newly planted trees, throwing them into a bonfire.

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There were more Palestinian demonstrations over recent land seizures near Ramallah and Jerusalem for new Jewish housing.

The week had already been one of violence, bloodshed and increasing distrust between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians on the West Bank in three incidents in which the army said its soldiers were fired on first by guerrillas.

In the Gaza Strip, in the bloodiest such encounter since self-rule, Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinian policemen in circumstances that are still disputed. Israel says its forces were fired on first in an ambush, but the Palestinian Authority denies it.