In stifling heat, at the Givat Shaul cemetery on the outskirts of Jerusalem yesterday, thousands of mourners watched in agonised silence as 11 of the 15 Israeli victims of Thursday's suicide bombing were lowered into the parched ground. Across town, in the eastern sector of the city claimed by the Palestinians, Israeli security forces were defending their control of the local Palestinian diplomatic headquarters, which they seized overnight in a response to the bombing.
One of the deadliest attacks in recent years, the blast at the downtown Sbarro pizza restaurant devastated several families, but none more than the Schijveschuurders - immigrants from Holland: father Mordechai, mother Tzira, and children Raya (14), Yitzhak (4) and Hemda (2). Two other children survived the attack. At the cemetery yesterday, relatives acknowledged that they had yet to decide who, now, would raise these new orphans.
In response, the Israeli government sent troops to take over the PLO's main Orient House offices in East Jerusalem, Mr Arafat's primary toehold in the disputed city, overseen until his death in May by Faisal Husseini. The move that was opposed by some Labour government ministers, and condemned by the left-wing opposition leader Mr Yossi Sarid, who noted that "no terrorists" had been based there.
Since the mid-1990s, a Palestinian flag had flown from the roof of the complex - in something of a symbol of compromise: centrist Israeli governments had endorsed the Palestinian presence; right-wing governments, though openly opposed to any formalised Palestinian role in the city, had seethingly tolerated it. As of yesterday morning, however, the Israeli flag flies.
The Israelis arrested several Orient House officials, claiming that they were in illegal possession of a loaded machine-gun, and then deployed en masse to thwart efforts by Palestinians and European protesters to re-enter the compound. The area has now been declared a "closed military zone". The Israeli Public Security Minister, Mr zi Landau, said that the takeover of the building was "permanent," and that its use for Palestinian political purposes - Mr Husseini routinely met with visiting statespeople and local diplomats there - was "a flagrant breach of Israeli law". Israel claims sovereignty throughout the city.
Palestinian officials called for international intervention to restore the building to their control. Mr Ahmad Abdel Rahman, the Palestinian Authority's Cabinet Secretary, said that the "Israeli occupation of the Orient House aims to destroy all agreements" and that such actions left the Palestinians with "only one weapon in our hands - our Intifada". The Israeli troops also commandeered several buildings, including that of the local governor, in the nearby Palestinian neighbourhood of Abu Dis. Officials claimed that the offices were being used by Mr Arafat's Force 17 unit as "a springboard" for attacks. The move into Abu Dis emphasized the violent reversal of the peace process: just a little more than a year ago, then prime minister, Mr Ehud Barak, was readying to hand over Abu Dis to Mr Arafat's control; a proposed Palestinian parliament building has already been built in the neighbourhood.
The choice of Israeli response to the suicide bombing, said by officials to be designed to force Mr Arafat "to end the violence and the terrorism", is also clearly intended to reassert Israeli control in parts of Jerusalem where the Palestinians, as the peace process moved forward in the 1990s, had been tacitly establishing their authority. Israeli officials said they now intended to open new police stations in the East of the city - and to try and minimise the activities there of Palestinian security personnel with whom, again tacitly, the Israeli police had been quietly co-operating to minimise tensions.
Seventeen people injured in the Thursday blast remained in hospital last night, including one in critical condition. At the restaurant itself, green hardboard covered the holes where the plate-glass windows were blown away; inside, repair work was already advancing, with the owners declaring that "the only response" to the attack was to reopen the restaurant as soon as possible.