Three people were killed in another day of tit-for-tat Israeli-Palestinian violence yesterday, as Israel unveiled plans to bulldoze a "buffer zone" between its sovereign border and the West Bank, and the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, took his firmest stance against peace talks with the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat.
The violence followed what has become the dispiriting pattern of strike and counter-strike: Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at a Palestinian vehicle in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, killing two men it alleged were indirectly involved in past attacks, but lightly injuring the main target - Mr Raed Karmi - the self-confessed recent killer of two Israelis who were eating at a Palestinian restaurant in the city.
A few hours after Mr Karmi had escaped the missile attack, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a vehicle inside Israel, to the north of Tulkarm, killing the driver and injuring a passenger. Mr Karmi's self-styled Al-Aqsa Brigades group claimed responsibility for the shooting, and Mr Karmi said he intended to carry out further attacks on Israeli targets.
The fact that people like Mr Karmi, members of Mr Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO, now openly take responsibility for killing Israeli civilians is at the heart of the collapse of faith in Mr Arafat among the vast majority of Israelis, across the political spectrum.
Mr Karmi's name is one of seven the Israeli government made public earlier this summer - branding them the key organisers of Intifada violence, declaring that Mr Arafat had refused its repeated requests for their arrest, and intimating it would now attempt to track down and eliminate them.
The Palestinian leadership, for its part, angrily denounces the acknowledged Israeli policy of "targeted strikes" against Intifada activists - branding such hits "extra-judicial killings". Mr Nabil Sha'ath, the Palestinian Minister of Planning, termed yesterday's missile hits "murder in cold blood". While the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, is still attempting to set up a meeting with Mr Arafat, neither Palestinian leaders, nor Mr Sharon, appear to be showing much interest in such contacts. Indeed Mr Sharon, who completed a visit to Russia yesterday, told the Russian press that Mr Arafat constitutes, "the main obstacle on the way to peace". The PA head, Mr Sharon added, had created "a coalition of terror", and his signature on past peace accords was worth "nothing more than a signature on a piece of ice". Attempting to disengage from the Palestinians - but without formally relinquishing further West Bank land - Mr. Sharon is now gearing up to establish buffer zones along the "Green Line", the hitherto unmarked border between sovereign Israel and the West Bank. Many Israeli leaders are pressing for what they call "unilateral separation", under which Israel would relinquish most or even all of the West Bank to the PA. But this would require the dismantling of the Jewish settlements, home to more than 200,000 Israelis. Mr Sharon is ideologically opposed to such a move, and therefore is proposing what one Likud party colleague has called "functional separation" - which would see a buffer zone bulldozed along the border, but no dismantling of settlements and no automatic land-handover to the PA.
Mr Sha'ath said yesterday the plan amounted to collective punishment and "more suffering for the Palestinian people". Some of the land involved, it seems, may currently be under PA control, and the project would clearly affect the daily lives of many Palestinians: The "buffer zone" would extend, in some areas, as deep as two kilometers into the West Bank. Mr Ze'ev Schiff, Israel's foremost military analyst, wrote it would "make life more difficult for the general Palestinian population, including those who do not support military action inside Israel".
Meanwhile, the farcical saga of the Labour Party's attempt to elect a new leader was reaching its culmination last night. Mr Avraham Burg, the Knesset Speaker, was claiming victory. And the party's electoral machine was confirming he had prevailed by in excess of 1,000 votes - despite ongoing allegations by the Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the losing candidate, of widespread ballot fraud.