Israel and the Palestinian Authority seem closer than ever to all-out war after a weekend during which six Israelis and at least four Palestinians were killed, with Israel carrying out several air and ground attacks inside Palestinian territory.
In a graphic illustration of the move ever nearer a war footing, the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, touring PA positions destroyed in the latest Israeli raids, yesterday carried his own sub-machine gun with him and declared that "war doesn't frighten us".
And Israeli Knesset members have been formally warned by their parliamentary security officer that they are potential targets for Palestinian attack.
Mr Arafat is telling his main force of uniformed policemen not to directly engage in attacks on Israeli targets, but more and more of his loyalists are openly taking up arms, and Israel is retaliating against Mr Arafat's police and security installations for each attack they carry out.
At the same time, prospects are dimming for diplomatic intervention: a much touted meeting between Mr Arafat and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, has yet to be scheduled.
The declaration of US President Mr George W. Bush at the weekend - that Mr Arafat, if "interested in a dialogue" had to do a better job of stopping "terrorist activity" - has been denounced by a Palestinian spokeswoman, Ms Hanan Ashrawi, as "full and absolute American bias".
And Mr Arafat, having apparently now given up on the US, the UN and even President Hosni Mubarak's Egypt, has tentatively scheduled a trip to Syria next month - a move representing an unmistakable lurch into radicalism, and a potential opening of his path to arch-sponsors of extremist violence in Teheran.
On a weekend that saw bloodshed at numerous flashpoints in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the most psychologically significant incident came at the Israeli army's Marganit outpost in Gaza.
Two Palestinian gunmen, one a member of Mr Arafat's security forces, breached the electric perimeter fencing and shot dead three soldiers before they were themselves gunned down.
An army inquiry into the incident is now under way, with the Hebrew media describing it as proof of military incompetence.
Meanwhile, some Palestinian commentators are drawing parallels with the attacks on Israeli positions carried out by Hizbullah in southern Lebanon that ultimately prompted Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000.
In response to the attack, which was claimed by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Israel sent F-15 and F-16 warplanes, along with tanks and bulldozers, to demolish several Palestinian police and military intelligence positions in the Gaza Strip.
At least two Palestinians - one a teenage boy - were reported killed in this and subsequent clashes. Walking amidst the rubble, Kalashnikov in hand, Mr Arafat declared yesterday that "the wind will not move the mountain".
There was powerful psychological significance, too, to another shooting attack, later on Saturday. Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli civilian car travelling outside Jerusalem on a major road that winds back and forth across the border into the West Bank. Three Israelis were killed - a husband and wife, Sharon and Yaniv Ben-Shalom, and Sharon's brother.
The two infant children of the couple were lightly injured.
Mr Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place on one of the two main roads leading out of Jerusalem towards central Israel. The army yesterday deployed tanks to try and safeguard the road.
In another attack yesterday, an Israeli businessman in his late 50s, who had apparently arranged to meet Palestinian traders, was shot dead at close range.