Daniel and Michal Malka were out on a family visit on Tuesday night - a social event that saved their lives. Two Hamas gunmen took refuge in their home at the Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai, and were shot dead there by Israeli soldiers. Lior Harpaz and her boyfriend Assaf Yitzhaki were not so fortunate. They were the first people the gunmen saw when they broke into the settlement, and they were gunned down.
While Daniel Malka was surveying the broken doors at his home and the smashed remains of his collection of decorative plates yesterday, the Harpaz family was burying a daughter. "It's terrible," said her uncle, Mr Oz Harpaz. "Two young people in love. Now they will stay young forever."
The Hamas raid on Elei Sinai, the first incursion into a settlement in more than a year of daily confrontation, was met yesterday by an Israeli response that took more lives: Six Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire as troops knocked down several Palestinian security buildings and took control of a wide swathe of Palestinian land immediately adjacent to Elei Sinai and two other settlements.
The troops were deploying to defend the settlers against further attacks, said military officials; their actions were a pretext for a continued assault on the Palestinians, said aides to the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat.
In more violence last night, Palestinian gunmen in another Intifada hotspot, the West Bank city of Hebron, opened fire on thousands of Jewish worshippers who had gathered for a Tabernacles celebration at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. One woman was shot in the chest and badly hurt, a second was shot in the foot. As the worshippers were evacuated in bulletproof vehicles, Israeli troops fired back at the source of the gunfire - in the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood.
Another casualty of this new violence was the much-breached ceasefire, which had theoretically been cemented a week ago in talks between Mr Arafat and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres. And with its collapse, gone too for now are US hopes of a de-escalated Israeli-Palestinian conflict yielding widespread Arab support for the war on terrorism.
The Israeli cabinet has stated that, in the light of the settlement raid, it no longer feels bound to limit its military responses. The Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, has cancelled talks between Mr Peres and top aides to Mr Arafat, and between security chiefs from both sides. There will be no such meetings until Mr Arafat "starts thwarting terrorism," said the Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.
Hamas released a videotape showing one of the gunmen declaring he was setting out "to please God and to champion Islam and Muslims and our dispersed people, who are subjected to the ugliest forms of Zionist terrorism."