Israeli forces briefly entered the Palestinian-controlled West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday afternoon, when clashes following Friday Muslim prayers intensified into a full-scale battle.
The incursion, ironically, came just hours after Israeli and Palestinian security officials had met to discuss reducing violence, and ahead of a shuttle mission by the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, to Cairo, Amman and Washington, designed to advance international efforts to achieve a ceasefire and resume peace negotiations.
The Israeli forces fired machine-guns and rockets at an office building in the north of Ramallah after coming under attack.
Israel Radio said that the building was the local headquarters of the Fatah group. Palestinian sources said the building housed the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics.
At least one Palestinian was badly injured in the confrontation, which erupted when some 2,000 Palestinians marched on an Israeli army position on the northern edge of the city. Witnesses said Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the Israelis, who fired back.
Earlier this month, after a mortar was fired into Israeli territory, Israel sent armoured forces deep into Palestinian parts of Gaza, only to retreat quickly a day later following angry criticism from the US of the "excessive" reaction. Yesterday's incursion into Ramallah was brief and smallscale by comparison, but underlined the army's new readiness to enter Palestinian areas since the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, took office in early March.
In Gaza, meanwhile, a soldier and a settler were hurt by a bomb near a Jewish settlement. And at the Jabalya refugee camp, thousands of Hamas supporters called for more mortar attacks on Israel. The day's violence highlighted the urgent need for a negotiated ceasefire, but yesterday's meeting of security officers was derided by both sides as unproductive, and another has now been scheduled for tomorrow. Palestinian representatives demanded that Israel lift its ban on more than 100,000 Palestinian workers from entering Israel. Israeli representatives called for a concerted effort by the Palestinian leadership to quell anti-Israel violence, and the result was something of a dialogue of the deaf.
Even Mr Peres's much-touted mission is a far from guaranteed success. While Israel is presenting its attitude to an Egyptian-Jordanian proposal as "agreement in principle", it is seeking firmer guarantees that Palestinian violence will be halted, and opposes the plan's call for a freeze on building at settlements and a six-month time-frame for a permanent peace treaty.
Furthermore, the proposal's provision for "preserving and developing" progress made at last summer's failed Camp David and Taba peace talks is anathema to Mr Sharon, who argues that his predecessor, Mr Ehud Barak, offered overly generous concessions to Mr Arafat.
Mr Barak himself, as well as the Camp David host, former President Bill Clinton, have firmly characterised "understandings" reached at Camp David as "null and void". But Mr Saeb Erekat, the senior Palestinian negotiator, is adamant that those understandings - which included Israeli readiness to relinquish more than 90 per cent of the West Bank - must serve as the starting point for any future talks.