The Israeli helicopters were circling over Bethlehem again last night. Six Palestinians, including a schoolgirl, had been killed in a day of violence, and the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin were blockaded by the army. The Jewish residents of the Gilo neighbourhood were under fire from Palestinian gunmen in Beit Jala. Palestinian officials were accusing Israel of terrorism and comparing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Osama Bin Laden. And Mr Sharon was telling colleagues that the days of attempting to forge a partnership with Mr Yasser Arafat were over, never to return.
For the extremists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who have always rejected any notion of peaceful co-existence alongside Israel, this drastic deterioration presumably represents the delightful fruits of their assassination, in a Jerusalem hotel on Wednesday morning, of the Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. For the dwindling number of moderates on either side of this conflict, and for the American-led alliance attempting to retain Arab support for the military response to the attacks of September 11th, it amounts to a disaster.
And there appears to be no immediate way out.
Palestinian leaders profess themselves convinced that Mr Sharon is now bent on executing a well-laid plan to recapture areas of the West Bank that predecessor Israeli governments had turned over to Mr Arafat's control, and to crush the Palestinian Authority.
Despite their assertions yesterday that they had uncovered an Israeli plot to assassinate Mr Arafat, few Palestinian officials seriously believe Mr Sharon has any such plan, but a considerable number, and with good reason, think it plausible that the prime minister may wish to drive their president back into exile.
And the disillusion has filtered deeply into the wider Palestinian consciousness, reinforced by each day's new horrors. Take Ms Kamar Irshaid, the Jenin teacher who saw one of her pupils, Rihan Ward (12), killed and another badly hurt yesterday by an Israeli tank shell. "I saw two girls in the classroom fall down, bleeding from their chests and their heads," she told an Associated Press reporter in the town. "Even if there were (Palestinian) gunmen around the school, it does not justify shelling of the school." As for the Israeli leadership, even the last of the ministerial moderates, Shimon Peres, voted in favour of the cabinet's furiously worded overnight statement accusing Mr Arafat of presiding over "a coalition of terror" and warning that if Mr Arafat did not take action against "terror groups, their factions and the establishment supporting them," Israel would "act" against the PA.
Amid the eulogies at the graveside of Mr Ze'evi yesterday, the most striking words were not the bitter plea for revenge delivered by the minister's son, but the withering accusation of responsibility levelled at Mr Arafat by the Speaker of the Knesset Avraham Burg, a former leader of the left-wing Peace Now movement, and today a leading Labour Party moderate who refused to sit in the Sharon coalition, where he would likely have been appointed a minister.
Mr Burg, who has always supported the peace partnership with the PA, echoed Mr Sharon in blaming Mr Arafat for fomenting the hostile atmosphere that saw Mr Ze'evi killed. The dead man's blood, he said, "fills your hands." As though to emphasise the depth of the despair, reports are now circulating that the Bush administration may shelve a mooted new peace initiative, and that Mr Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State who was to have unveiled it from a podium at the United Nations next month, is now writing a new speech.