The Israeli government said last night it was giving "one last chance" to Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority to stamp out terrorism, after an Israeli cabinet minister was assassinated by Palestinian gunmen at a Jerusalem hotel yesterday morning.
In a statement issued after an emergency cabinet meeting, the government demanded that the Authority immediately extradite the leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the PLO faction that claimed responsibility for the killing of the Minister of Tourism, hardliner Mr Rehavam Ze'evi.
If this demand were not met, said a government spokesman, Israel would have "no choice" but to regard the Palestinian Authority as a terrorist regime and "act against it in the manner accepted by the international community".
Asked if that meant that Israel would seek to bring down the Authority, the spokesman replied, "Everything at the appropriate time." The government also vowed to wage "all-out war" against the PFLP and other extremist factions operating from Palestinian territory, and said it reserved the right to send its troops into Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Last night, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up and injured two soldiers in the Gaza Strip.
Behind the scenes, the US and Britain were making efforts to forestall a harsh Israeli military response, which might alienate moderate Arab support for the US-led anti-terror coalition. Both President Bush and British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, condemned the killing.
Aides to Mr. Arafat expressed sorrow over the killing - the first of an Israeli minister by Arab gunmen - which the PFLP said it carried out in revenge for Israel's assassination in August of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa. Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, Mr Arafat's Information Minister, called for "an end to this vicious cycle of killing and violence".
Mr Arafat was said to have given orders for the arrests of those involved. A PFLP official was detained yesterday afternoon, but then released.
PFLP spokesmen boasted that they had made good on their pledge to avenge the killing of Mr Mustafa, and that the organisation would continue its "resistance".
Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, said that he placed "full responsibility" for the killing on Mr Arafat. The Palestinian Authority, the ministers said in a unanimous statement, was "running a coalition of terrorism, cooperating with and engaging in terrorism" in precisely the same way as the Taliban cooperated with Osama Bin Laden. Indeed, Mr Sharon was said to have told ministers that he considered the murder of a government minister in Jerusalem to be as significant, symbolically, as the September 11 attack on the twin towers.
Mr Ze'evi (75) was shot at close range at 7 a.m. outside his room in the Hyatt Hotel on Jerusalem's Mount Scopus.
Early indications were that the gunman, or gunmen, had used silenced weapons, and fled towards the West Bank city of Ramallah, to the north. Jerusalem's Mayor Ehud Olmert said that the recent of easing of restrictions on Palestinian movement around Ramallah might have helped the escape. Those restrictions were re-imposed yesterday.