Palestinian Prime Minister Mr Ahmed Qurie warned Israel today that a controversial barrier it is building in the West Bank would kill off a US-backed "road map" peace plan.
Adding to pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon, a new opinion poll showed half of Israelis see him as untrustworthy amid signs he is considering a go-it-alone plan to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians on Israel's terms.
With the "road map" stymied by mutual mistrust, Mr Sharon has said he may evacuate some isolated settlements and set borders along the barrier, in effect annexing occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood as envisaged by the "road map".
He says a Palestinian failure to disarm militants behind suicide attacks is pushing him toward unilateral security steps.
Palestinians say Israel cannot achieve peace by hemming them in behind what they call a new "Berlin Wall". Mr Sharon's plan-in-the-making has also drawn criticism from Washington.
"(The barrier) will kill the (peace) process. It will kill anyone who speaks of peace... Now there is relative quiet. But the terror will start anew. The barrier can't prevent it," Mr Qurie told Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest daily, in an interview.
Relative calm has prevailed for weeks. But in a flare-up before dawn today, Palestinian gunmen wounded seven ultra-Orthodox Jews who defied Israeli military orders by praying at a shrine in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Israeli security sources said one of the Jews was critically wounded when gunmen fired at their vehicle near Joseph's Tomb, revered by Jews as the burial site of the biblical patriarch.