Jews, Palestinians Test Boundaries Under New Regime : Mideast: Settlers take weapons into Jericho synagogue. In the Gaza Strip, gunmen fire at Israeli troops.

Jewish settlers defied PLO authority Sunday by carrying automatic rifles into a Jericho synagogue guarded by Palestinian police officers. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian gunmen fired on Israeli troops, and four Palestinians were wounded in the ensuing cross-fire.

It is a time of testing in the newly established autonomy zones of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank region of Jericho.

The bonds of cooperation between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization are fragile but appeared to be holding, despite incitement by opponents on both sides.

Jewish settlers carrying Uzi submachine guns and pistols were escorted by Israeli soldiers to the Peace Upon Israel synagogue, where they jostled past PLO police with Kalashnikov rifles.

For the most part, both sides avoided eye contact, but each had complaints.

“I am not against them coming and praying here, but I know they are not here today to pray,” said Mohammed abu Ayesh, 33. “They are here for provocations.”

He stood guard outside the two-story synagogue with flaking ochre paint and crumbling plaster, a reconstruction of a 6th-Century synagogue just north of Jericho.

Hanan Porat, a West Bank settler leader and right-wing member of the Israeli Knesset, or Parliament, said settlers would not show PLO police identification or obey any of their orders.

“For us, these soldiers of Palestine are like the air. I don’t see them. They don’t have identity,” Porat said, adding that he believed the autonomy agreement was “temporary” and that Israel was the “landlord of the Land of Israel.”

Settlement leader Aharon Domb said settlers planned “to come every day and at all hours” to show “that we are not leaving Jericho.”

Despite the rhetoric and concealed tensions, the dozen or so PLO police made no move to challenge the 60 Jewish settlers.

The settlers left before sunset, the start of the Shavuot holiday marking the day Moses received the Ten Commandments.

Another test of the new order came in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah, where PLO police now control the Palestinian town and Israeli soldiers still protect Jewish settlements.

PLO police and Israeli soldiers jointly investigated a shooting in which five gunmen in a van opened fire on soldiers guarding the Morag settlement.

Four Palestinians in a car nearby were wounded, but it was not clear whether the bullets were fired by the gunmen or Israeli troops who returned fire on their assailants.

Wall slogans claimed responsibility for the drive-by shooting in the name of Hamas, the Islamic fundamentalist group opposed to the autonomy agreement.