A relentless escalation of Israeli military attacks on targets in Gaza and of growing Palestinian armed retaliation is making their conflict daily more dangerous for both parties and the Middle East as a whole.
Yesterday 11 Palestinians died when Israeli aircraft attacked a vehicle in Gaza's main street, days after a family was killed on a beach. As a result the armed wing of Hamas has lifted its 16-month ceasefire and increased the number of rocket attacks on Israel. This comes when its political wing is more and more frustrated in governing the Palestinian Authority after its victory in January's elections. Hamas has also stopped its co-operation with a planned referendum to endorse a two-state resolution of the conflict penned by an influential group of Palestinian prisoners. The suspension of financial aid from western sources to force Hamas leaders into recognising Israel is rebounding in the collapse of its capacity to govern.
That serves the interest of neither party to the conflict in objective terms, whether their security or their ideology; but such a realisation is slow indeed to materialise. It ought to stimulate fresh efforts to revive dialogue between them - but almost certainly will not do so in the near future. This is dangerous for all concerned, since it will encourage an escalation from which only the extremes will benefit. They include military and political forces in Israel and the United States determined to bury Hamas in a welter of incapacity, and rejectionist Palestinians fearful that Hamas will accommodate too easily to Israel.
There is an alternative to this fatalistic and pessimistic scenario of a return to war. It involves recognising that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved bilaterally in such a naked expression of asymmetric power. It requires systematic application of external influence. The new Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has been pressing home the case for his unilateral approach this week on his visits to London and Paris. But that leaves most of the basic features of the conflict unresolved, or skewed in Israel's favour because of its hugely superior power.
The European Union decision to suspend financing the Palestinian Authority until Hamas recognised Israel has since been modified. It failed to take account of the political evolution going on within Hamas, which is capable of being channelled constructively towards a political engagement.
The referendum proposal tested that. This round of violence dangerously undermines it.