Checkpoint attacks put security agreement in doubt.(Chicago Tribune)

KFAR DAROM, Gaza Strip_Any thought that the Israeli army would soon allow Palestinians to share security control over this stretch of Palestinian territory fades in the dust of an eight-mile security road that winds its way through the heart of the Gaza Strip.

Every inch of the dirt road is strung tight with barbed wire and electronic circuits. Every morning, armored bulldozers lumber along the fence that separates Palestinian territory and Israeli settlement land, combing the yellow silt in search of explosives feared planted near the army base. Every day, men like Col. Halutzi Rudoy, commander of the Seventh Armored Brigade, thrust armored jeeps over hill and rut on guard for deadly challenges to Jewish life in Gaza.

"This is the most complicated thing in Gaza," said Rudoy as he navigated his vehicle along a security border that nudges a cluster of kibbutzes and settlements in the center of the Gaza Strip. "The big problem is how to secure our people who live here."

More than a week ago, militants attempted to break through the perimeter fence of Kfar Darom, a settlement of 40 families. Soldiers from the two tanks and three armored personnel carriers posted inside the settlement quickly fired on and killed the infiltrators.

That attack, one of dozens in the last six months, unnerved Kfar Darom. It also helped sidetrack one of the few advances toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians in nearly two years of violence. The settlement attack effectively scuttled plans for what Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer deemed a breakthrough agreement to pull back troops in some parts of Palestinian territory and to send Palestinian security officers back to work.

Ben Eliezer's plan, announced with fanfare Aug. 19, aimed to pull troops from the West Bank town of Bethlehem and from parts of the Gaza Strip in order to renew Palestinian police control after months of Israeli army incursions.

Bethlehem witnessed some immediate troop withdrawal as military checkpoints and tanks remained on the outskirts of town. Gaza, by contrast, has seen only cosmetic changes. Last week, Palestinian police were allowed to begin conducting traffic stops into some sections of the Gaza Strip. Those stops were allowed only in addition to existing stringent Israeli military checkpoints.