As Israelis and Palestinians yesterday questioned the viability of the fragile ceasefire, one story served to illustrate the potential for a better future.
Mazen Juliani, a 33-year-old Palestinian pharmacist from the Shuafat neighbourhood in Jerusalem, was shot dead in circumstances that police said yesterday remained unclear. The shooting was presumed to have nothing to do with the current Israeli-Palestinian tension. Remarkably, given that tension, his family agreed to donate his organs - and Israeli Jews were among the recipients of his heart, pancreas, liver and kidneys. Mr Yigal Cohen, the Jewish recipient of the heart, said he was deeply grateful to its Palestinian donor, and prayed that the family's act of nobility would help "bring Jews and Arabs closer together".
"We consulted the sheikh," said Mr Juliani's father, "and he said that Islam teaches us to do anything that can bring life." A far cry, indeed, from the rulings of purported Islamic authorities, including the Palestinian mufti of Jerusalem, who have invoked Islam in recent weeks in support of suicide bombings and other acts of violence against Israelis.
Two days after the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, issued his first Arabic ceasefire call in the eight months of Intifada violence, and a day after he met representatives of numerous Palestinian factions to urge them to stop carrying out attacks on Israeli targets from within PA territory, there was a marked reduction in violence yesterday, but no all-out halt. But Arafat's demand of the factions amounted to less than the 100 per cent ceasefire he had pledged.
For hours at Rafah, on the Egypt-Israel-Gaza border, Israeli troops and Palestinian exchanged fire, each blaming the other for starting the hostilities, with the Palestinians claiming 18 of their people were injured, the Israelis three of theirs. But that clash was by far the worst incident of the day. Significantly, PA patrols trundled through Beit Jalla south of Jerusalem last night, to ensure none of the all too familiar gunfire at the adjacent Jewish neighbourhood of Gilo, and the PA made some arrests in Kalkilya of suspects believed to have helped orchestrate last Friday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
The death toll from that bombing has risen to 21 - 20 Israelis and the bomber - and at least two more Israelis are still in critical condition.
Members of Mr Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO reiterated yesterday that the Intifada would go on, ceasefire or not, and numerous Palestinian leaders protested at Israel's imposition of a total closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, preventing all Palestinians from leaving, and heavily restricting movement between cities. "If Israel wants to end the conflict," said Ahmed Ghneim, a Fatah leader in the West Bank, "it has to end the occupation."
Israeli officials, meanwhile, confirmed that PA facilities were marked down as targets for a retaliatory attack in the wake of Friday's suicide bombing, and that the retaliation plans would be revived if the ceasefire failed.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, was heavily criticised by one member of his own Likud party yesterday for shelving the retaliation. And the far-right National Union coalition faction is threatening to overthrow the government.
The military branch of Hamas and an armed Fatah group announced a truce yesterday conditional on Israel's acceptance of a withdrawal from the territories.