The besieged Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, yesterday stepped up his verbal assault on Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing the Israeli Prime Minister of declaring war on the Palestinian people - a move, he said, that would lead to a "huge explosion".
"Netanyahu has declared war on us and we have to get prepared for what is to come," Mr Arafat said in an interview in the daily Yediot Aharonot. Referring to the harsh punitive measures imposed by Mr Netanyahu in the wake of a double suicide bombing in a Jerusalem marketplace last week that killed 15 people, Mr Arafat charged the Israeli leader with "harming" an entire population. If he continued with the measures it would lead to "a huge explosion", he said. No-one would be able to stop it.
Mr Arafat has already urged leaders of the PLO's main Fatah faction to prepare for "a big battle ahead of us, one that is much more difficult than anything that came before . . . We must stock up on muscle, ideas, and food . . ."
That may have already started. A group of 50 Palestinians graduated from a combat training course in the West Bank city of Ramallah, aimed at confronting Israeli forces if they decide to enter Palestinian-controlled areas - a threat made by Mr Netanyahu after the recent bombings.
The Israeli Minister of National Infrastructures, Mr Ariel Sharon, angrily dismissed Mr Arafat's talk of war yesterday, calling the Palestinian leader a "murderer" and a "man with whom it is impossible to make peace".
Mr Arafat, though, appeared to be backtracking partially yesterday, saying his words had been misconstrued: he had not called on his people to prepare for war against Israel, he said, but for a bitter struggle against the "starvation" measures of the Israeli government.
The war of words comes in the midst of what appears to be a renewed effort by the US to save the ailing peace process which has been deadlocked ever since Israel began construction of a Jewish housing project on the hilltop of Har Homa in east Jerusalem earlier this year. The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, is to visit the region at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, tension also mounted in Israel's self-styled security zone in south Lebanon as five people - four civilians, including a mother and her two children, and a member of Israel's proxy South Lebanese Army - were killed yesterday by artillery shells and roadside bombs. That followed a night of rocket attacks by Hizbullah guerillas on Israeli army bases close to the country's northern border.
The rockets, some of which landed just inside Israel and forced hundreds of residents in northern border towns into airraid shelters for the night, did not cause injury or damage, and were part of Hizbullah retaliation for an Israeli raid earlier in the week which left five of their fighters dead.
Despite the tension in Lebanon, a 40-strong delegation of Israeli Arabs yesterday set off for an eight-day visit to Damascus where they are to meet President Hafez Assad of Syria. The delegation includes six members of Israel's parliament, including three from mainstream Zionist parties.
Peter Hirschberg is a senior writer at the Jerusalem Report