VIOLENCE between Israel and the Palestinians intensified further yesterday when two Palestinians were killed attempting suicide bombings of Jewish settler school buses in the Gaza Strip, and two more were shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
American diplomats were quoted here last night as blaming Mr Netanyahu for plunging Israrel's standing worldwide to catastrophic depths. Israeli sources countered that the US was failing to hold the Palestine President, Mr Yasser Arafat, to his commitment to fight terrorism.
"Today's twin attacks ... are proof that the terror campaign continues," Mr Netanyahu told reporters. "The terrorist organisations ... continue to understand they have a green light from the Palestinian Authority to perpetrate their savagery," he said.
Mr Netanyahu also confirmed that he is weighing the possibility of forming a national unity government to achieve a broad consensus for a final peace deal with the Palestinians.
Yesterday's two bombing attempts occurred near the Gaza Strip settlements of Kfar Darom and Netzarim. Mr Moti Yifrah, a driver taking schoolchildren from Netzarim to lessons at another settlement nearby, set off about a minute later than usual. As he began the journey, he heard a blast about 500 metres ahead of him. "If I had left at my usual time, he'd have got me," Mr Yifrah said later.
The Kfar Darom blast was also apparently aimed at a school bus, but went off too late. When the explosives detonated the only people injured were Palestinians from Khan Younis who had the misfortune to be travelling past in a taxi.
Initial investigation, by a joint Israeli-Palestinian team, showed both bombers to have been dressed in Palestinian police uniform, and to have been carrying the explosives on belts around their bodies.
Early claims by Palestinian officials that the Kfar Darom incident was actually a shooting attack on the taxi by Israeli soldiers were rebutted by Palestinian doctors treating the injured, who said they had been hurt by shrapnel not bullets, and by the discovery of the dismembered parts of the bomber's body at the scene.
The Islamic Jihad, a splinter group from the Hamas movement, claimed responsibility for yesterday's blasts, saying they were in protest at Israeli building at Hard Homa. The dead bomber at Kfar Darom was reported to have been a member of Mr Arafat's preventive security apparatus, the very network intended to frustrate extremist bombers.
A Palestinian man killed during clashes with Israeli troops in Nablus yesterday was also a member of Mr Arafat's security forces.
Mr Haitham Mansour (22) was an intelligence officer in a drugs squad, according to Palestinian sources. He was shot dead while in plain clothes, having been dispatched to try and calm protesters on the western edge of the city. The governor of Nablus, Mr Mahmoud al-Alul, blamed his death on "the inhumanity" of the Israeli soldiers.
The fourth Palestinian to die yesterday, Mr Kamel Zaro from Hebron, was shot dead when ignoring Israeli orders to halt, apparently in the course of an attempted car theft at the nearby Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba.
Meanwhile, it was confirmed yesterday that Mr Netanyahu would meet President Clinton in Washington early next week. Mr Clinton said yesterday he was prepared personally to do anything I can" to save the Middle East peace process. "We've got to try to keep the lid on things over there ... It is not going to be easy," he told reporters.