Palestinian security officials have suspended participation in co-ordination meetings with Israeli and United States representatives following an unprofitable encounter on Wednesday night.
The Palestinian security chief for the Gaza strip, Gen Abdelrazak al-Madjaydeh, announced that the Palestinian team would not take part in further meetings until Israel halted kidnappings and assassinations of Palestinian activists.
Since Israel adopted the policy of targeting individual Palestinians last autumn, 42 people have died in bomb blasts and missile attacks.
The US and the EU have repeatedly condemned this policy and urged Israel to put an end to such killings.
CIA participants cut short the meeting after an hour-and-a-half of wrangling. The Palestinians called the meeting a "fiasco" while the US took the view that these gatherings had to be reconsidered.
The Palestinians were incensed when Israel refused to accept and consider a list of 50 settlers responsible for attacks on Palestinians. The list was handed over to the CIA.
During earlier meetings Israel presented the Palestinian side with lists of militants said to be implicated in attacks on Israelis.
The Palestinian Authority has refused to imprison the majority of those accused by Israel but has placed a few individuals in preventive detention.
Routine tripartite security meetings were a feature of the peace process before the Palestinian uprising, the Intifada, erupted 10 months ago. Between then and the imposition of the CIA-monitored ceasefire on June 13th, meetings were sporadic. Although the sides have since made more of an effort to hold weekly consultations these have usually degenerated into shouting matches.
Unwilling to allow the CIA to continue as sole mediator, the Bush administration has turned down an Israeli request to expand CIA participation in lieu of the international monitors proposed by last weekend's G8 summit in Genoa. The US is, reportedly, preparing a plan for deploying monitors.
Since the Intifada erupted, 520 Palestinian residents of the occupied territories and 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel have died and more than 14,000 have been wounded. At least 125 Israelis have been killed and more than 600 injured.
During the period of fruitful security co-operation inter-communal attacks had been almost completely eliminated.
