Hours after Israeli forces bulldozed two police positions in the West Bank city of Jenin, in one of Israel's deepest incursions into Palestinian-held territory, the Israeli army mounted a similar ground invasion in the Beit Jala area south of Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned the Palestinian Authority it could pay a heavy price if the 10-month-old Intifada uprising does not end, and at midnight Israel moved tanks into positions around the West Bank town of Bethelhem. The military declared a curfew on at least three Palestinian villages, and Palestinians were prepared for an incursion.
The US criticised the Jenin invasion. "As we have said before Israeli incursions into Palestian territory are provocative and undermine efforts to create an atmosphere of calm," said the National Security Council spokesman Mr Sean McCormack in Washington.
President Bush said: "The cycle of violence has got to end in order for any peace process to begin. Therefore . . . Palestinian President Yasser Arafat must clamp down on the suicide bombers and the violence and the Israelis have got to show restraint. We've got to break the cycle."
Russia and France also criticised the Israeli move, and the Palestinian Authority was pressing last night for an emergency session of the UN Security Council to discuss this and Israel's takeover of the Palestinians' unofficial Orient House headquarters in Jerusalem. Israel said the Jenin move came in response to several recent suicide bombings carried out by Palestinian militants from the Jenin area which, it said, PA officials could have prevented.
The Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, declared that the Palestinians had to learn that "they will achieve nothing through violence and terror. Quite the reverse." Israeli military officials declined to comment on the claims that a second ground incursion was imminent. But Mr Sharon seemed last night to be hinting that this was the case. "We will reach a situation," he said, "in which Gilo will not come under fire."
For five hours yesterday morning, Palestinian gunmen fired shots from Beit Jala at Gilo - the Jewish neighbourhood that sits within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries as defined by Israel, but which the Palestinians consider occupied West Bank territory. Israeli troops fired back, and temporarily seized control of three Beit Jala buildings. Jerusalem's Mayor, Mr Ehud Olmert, a member of Mr Sharon's Likud party, demanded the start of a "massive ground operation" in Beit Jala buildings.
The unprecedented daytime exchanges of fire were evidently a Palestinian-initiated response to Israel's pre-dawn three-hour incursion into Jenin - during which army bulldozers destroyed the Palestinian Authority's police HQ and a second police position.
After the tanks and troops had gone, hundreds of Palestinians poured into the city's main square to celebrate what Palestinian television praised as the "brave reaction" of PA security forces that "thwarted the attack". The local PA police chief, Mr Naim Jedallah, lauded the "women and children who defended their homeland". Although its troops did come under fire, Israeli military officials said that the "resistance" had been marginal. Still, for whatever reason, the army did not attempt to enter the local refugee camp, where military officials have said several key Islamic militants are based.
One leader of a Palestinian militant faction said yesterday he believed Mr Sharon was attempting to turn the 10-and-a- half-month-old Intifada into a direct military conflict between the Israeli Army and the PA, in which Israel could be certain to prevail.
Interestingly, Israeli analysts tended to agree - noting that Mr Sharon is adamant that, behind the scenes, the PA is working hand-in-glove with Hamas and other militants, and that he would therefore have an interest in what he would consider to be "exposing" the fighting face of Mr Arafat's regime.
Far from prompting a new PA-directed crackdown on the Islamists, the Jenin incursion was welcomed by Mr Arafat's Information Minister, Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, who said "we thank Sharon for this step". Israel, he explained, had now "shown the world that it is an invading army". Hamas reacted with an inevitable threat of more suicide attacks.
An Israeli police spokesman has confirmed that troops on Monday shot dead a Palestinian man who, it is alleged, murdered an Israeli teenager last month.
The man, Nasser Abu Zeideh, was killed after a police chase, the spokesman said. The Israeli teenager, Yuri Guschin, was found stabbed to death near Ramallah.