While still denying that it is destroying Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, Israeli planes, helicopters, tanks and infantry struck at PA installations across the Gaza Strip and West Bank yesterday.
They blew up police stations and security headquarters, knocked out Palestinian radio antennas and the radar station at Gaza airport, took over the home of one of Mr Arafat's key West Bank lieutenants, Mr Marwan Barghouti, and attacked buildings in Mr Arafat's own Ramallah headquarters.
Mr Arafat himself is being prevented from leaving Ramallah "for the foreseeable future," Israeli officials say. Soldiers have taken over two neighbourhoods in the city and encircled it.
"From our point of view," Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, told his ministers at an emergency cabinet meeting that ended early yesterday morning, "Arafat no longer exists. Period."
The cabinet session, at which Israel effectively severed ties with the PA, was called after Hamas gunmen ambushed an Israeli bus outside the West Bank settlement of Emmanuel on Wednesday night, killing 10 people. Two Palestinian suicide bombers simultaneously attacked Israeli vehicles in Gaza. At least three Palestinians died during yesterday's Israeli assault, including a Gaza woman who had a heart attack apparently caused by the shock of an Israeli air strike.
In a statement that was also endorsed by the more moderate Labour members of Mr Sharon's "unity government", the Israeli ministers said they held Mr Arafat "directly responsible" for the bus ambush - alleging that at least one of the three gunmen was named on a list of 33 bombing orchestrators whose arrest Israel had been demanding.
Henceforth, the statement added, Mr Arafat was "no longer relevant to Israel, and Israel will no longer have any connection with him." Aides to Mr Arafat said that this statement and the accompanying military action amounted to a "declaration of war" on the Palestinian people and their elected leader.
Israeli officials rejected this description - if only because the Bush Administration appears to have conditioned its tacit support for Israel's military moves on an assurance that Mr Arafat is not directly targeted.
Indeed, Mr William Burns, the Assistant Secretary of State, said that the US continued to regard Mr Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian people and would "work with him".
Israel's Justice Minister, Mr Meir Sheetrit, responded that Israel, by contrast, no longer regarded Mr Arafat as the "address" for any kind of relationship, and would resume ties only when the Palestinians had elected a leader "who will work against terrorism". Palestinian officials insisted that they were committed to such a fight. But as a consequence of the Israeli onslaught, said the Palestinian Information Minister, Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, it was now "impossible for the Palestinian leadership" to crack down on Hamas and other militant groups.
Israeli military sources indicated that the military action will continue, and possibly intensify, for days or even weeks. Significantly, Israeli ground forces that entered Palestinian-held territory encountered little resistance yesterday, and Mr Arafat had clearly ordered his tens of thousands of armed security personnel not to confront them.
Squeezed as never before here, Mr Arafat is getting little practical support from the Arab world. The Arab League has called off a planned summit of foreign ministers. And Jordan's King Abdallah said yesterday he would not send forces into the West Bank, and would close the West Bank bridges to prevent any influx of refugees to his kingdom.
Concerned by the threat posed by Hamas, the king also declared that "killing innocent and unarmed people is unacceptable". Fifteen of those injured in the bus ambush remained in hospital last night, including all four children of Mr Ya'acov Siton, an Emmanuel resident who initially believed his son was dead. "I saw them covering the body with a blanket," he said yesterday, "and I went over and begged forgiveness from my son." Later, he discovered that his son and three daughters were all in hospital, and that the corpse was that of a neighbour's child, a family friend. "It hardly hurt any less," he said.
The Tsarfati family was not so fortunate. Mr Ya'acov Tsarfati (64), and his son Hanan (38), and David (32), were all killed in the attack. His wife Dvora, who was injured, left hospital to attend their funerals yesterday, together with her two daughters.
Reuters adds:
The Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said yesterday the stakes were too high for the US to abandon its mediating role in the Middle East but he said the onus was on Mr Arafat to crack down on "terrorist" organisations.
"The situation is getting worse not better and we really cannot give up hope. We cannot walk away from this. The stakes are too high," Mr Powell told reporters in Washington.
He said the peace mission of envoy Mr Anthony Zinni, who was meeting Mr Sharon at the time Mr Powell spoke, was continuing.
Mr Powell confirmed that Washington still recognised Mr Arafat as the legitimate authority representing the Palestinians despite Mr Sharon's decision to sever ties with him. It was essential, Mr Powell said, to "get rid of" Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups. "They are more likely to destroy the Palestinian cause than to destroy the state of Israel and that is why Mr Arafat, it seems to me, has the burden upon him to act very aggressively" Mr Powell said.