Far from solidifying a fragile truce, last Wednesday's tense ceasefire talks between Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, have been followed by an eruption of some of the heaviest violence in a year of Intifada conflict. In five days 17 Palestinians have been killed - including three shot dead yesterday by Israeli troops.
Mr Arafat, who flew to Cairo yesterday to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, charged that the Israeli army and right-wing ministers were attempting to destroy the truce. More remarkably, Mr Peres himself was also reported to be charging that the army was instituting harsher measures. On the right of the Israeli government, by contrast, ministers alleged Mr Arafat was deliberately provoking heavier confrontation.
Formally, both sides remain committed to their ceasefire agreements which mapped out a timetable for Israel's easing of restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank and Gaza, concerted efforts by Mr Arafat's security forces to rein in militants, and an eventual resumption of substantive peace negotiations. Neither Israel nor the PA wishes to be blamed by the US for an escalation of violence - which, Washington has made clear, could constitute an obstacle to international consensus-building for its assault on terror. Against that background, security contacts between the two sides were continuing last night and Mr Peres met Mr Saeb Erekat and Mr Abu Ala, the chief Palestinian negotiators.
Nevertheless, the Israeli cabinet yesterday decided that if, by tomorrow it deems Mr Arafat to be failing to uphold his ceasefire responsibilities, it will resume so-called "initiated actions". These have included the tracking down and killing of those it alleges are orchestrating suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli targets.
At the root of the argument between Mr Peres and the army, however, is Mr Peres's sense that his own military leaders have not actually halted the "initiated actions" - such as an incursion of tanks and bulldozers into the Rafah refugee camp area early last Thursday morning, which has been followed by relentless violence at the site, long an Intifada blackspot.
The three Palestinians killed yesterday were an armed Palestinian security officer in central Hebron - Israeli military sources said they feared he was about to open fire on Jewish homes there - and two Palestinian labourers, aged 50 and 19, whose taxis failed to stop at a West Bank roadblock near Atara. Eight more workers were injured by Israeli gunfire as they ran from taxis. A short while earlier, an Israeli had been shot and wounded by Palestinian gunmen nearby.
Mr Peres, desperate to make a success of the ceasefire, argued yesterday that Mr Arafat was trying to bring Palestinian protests under control. "His situation is not simple either," said Mr Peres, referring to opinion surveys that show overwhelming Palestinian public support for the Intifada.
Right-wing cabinet members, however, allege that it is Mr Arafat's own PA-controlled media that is fuelling the anti-Israeli sentiment, and note that the PA is still adamant that it will not arrest prominent militants from the fundamentalist Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements. One leading hawk, the Public Security Minister, Mr Uzi Landau, charged that Mr Peres, in continuing to liaise with Mr Arafat, had "blurred the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys and seriously impaired the army's preventive power."
Israel's Attorney-General, Mr Elyakim Rubinstein, is to look into possible criminal violations of election funding laws by Mr Sharon.