GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip ? Mourners fired assault rifles into the air and demanded revenge Friday after a car bomb killed a militia leader and a member of the security forces in what Palestinians say was the latest Israeli attack on prominent militants.

About 15,000 people marched in a funeral procession alongside the flag-draped bodies of Jihad Amerin, 48, the Gaza leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a militia affiliated with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization, and Nael Namera, 27, a security forces lieutenant.

“This is another crime against the leaders of the Palestinian people,” said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an adviser to Arafat.

Also Friday, Arafat consulted with his security officers, trying to smooth a rift over his ouster of Jibril Rajoub from a key West Bank security position, and the arrest of 19 Palestinians by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza who were “suspected of terrorist activity.”

The Israeli army said three of the suspects had been picked up in Jericho, the only one of the eight main Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank not taken over by Israel in the past two weeks.

Arafat has been under Israeli and U.S. pressure to restructure his competing and overlapping security forces and direct them to stop terror attacks against Israel. Arafat appointed Jenin governor Zuheir al-Manasra to replace Rajoub and offered the Jenin municipal post to Rajoub.

Rajoub refused the job, and some preventive security officers were threatening not to work under the new commander, raising speculation the force the strongest security branch in the West Bank might be disbanded.

A senior Palestinian official said preventive security officers were meeting with Arafat to discuss the shake-up. Rajoub said he would not comment until the meetings were finished, which may not be until today.

Rajoub has been mentioned as a possible Arafat successor and has had close ties with Israeli officials, who say he is one of the few leaders not linked directly to terror attacks. So far, however, he has pledged his loyalty to Arafat. He also lost face among many Palestinians and outraged Islamic extremists for surrendering his compound and Palestinian militants jailed inside to Israeli forces in April during their campaign to crush militias behind deadly attacks on Israel.