At 3 p.m. yesterday, after almost nine months, nearly 500 Palestinian and more than 100 Israeli dead, the guns fell silent. In theory.
The CIA director, Mr George Tenet, successfully concluded a week's chivvying and threatening, got both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to agree the (albeit unsigned) terms of a formal ceasefire, and then hopped on to a plane home to the US before anybody could change their mind.
In practice, shots were fired at two Israeli army positions near Tulkarm, in the West Bank, later yesterday afternoon. Hamas leaders declared they had no intention of honouring any truce.
Palestinian Authority (PA) officials complained that, at an initial co-ordinating meeting, Israel made no commitment as to when it would ease its blockade of West Bank cities.
The PA officials flatly rejected a provision in the ceasefire agreement that would keep Palestinian demonstrators at least 500 yards from Israeli positions in West Bank hot spots. And officials on both sides said they doubted that their opposite numbers had the slightest intention of respecting the ceasefire for more than a few days, if not hours.
Earlier, as though to underline how bloody is the daily routine that this ceasefire is supposed to assuage, a Greek monk was shot dead by Palestinian gunmen on his way home to his West Bank monastery, Israeli troops injured two Palestinians near the Gaza border with Egypt, alleging they were planting explosives, 38 bullets were fired at an Israeli woman at a West Bank bus stop from a Palestinian home across the street, leaving her with moderate injuries, and an Israeli construction worker was hit in the foot by gunfire near Tulkarm.
While Mr Tenet was flying home, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, was briefing his army chiefs, telling them that while he had next to no faith in the PA's ceasefire commitments, they needed to consider themselves to be "on a peace footing" unless or until events on the ground proved otherwise.
That meant, in accordance with Mr Tenet's unsigned three-page ceasefire paper, the Prime Minister said, that there would be no more use of live ammunition in dispersing demonstrations, there could be no firing on PA installations, and the top priority would be to improve security for settlers and other Israelis driving on West Bank roads.
Similarly, PA officials were handing down orders to their security forces, chief among them being the intensification of efforts to prevent suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli targets.
Other elements of the plan provide for Israel to rapidly ease its blockades and other restrictions on Palestinian movement, begin releasing Palestinians imprisoned for non-violent crimes, and prepare to withdraw its forces to the positions held prior to the eruption of the Intifada last September.
The Palestinians, for their part, are to collect illegal arms, close bomb factories and prevent arms smuggling.
They are not, it appears, being required to arrest Hamas militants with a history of orchestrating violence, but only those found to be involved in such violence from here on.
Praising his CIA chief's efforts, President Bush said both sides needed to "demonstrate good faith, in words but most importantly in deeds".
A Palestinian was killed and at least two wounded in a shooting attack in the West Bank last night. Witnesses said they saw a dead Palestinian man slumped over the wheel of a van and two passengers with bleeding hands from glass wounds. Israeli police officers were questioning passengers. Palestinian officials blamed Jewish settlers for the attack.