While still denying it intends to bring down the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government has now sent forces into six of the eight major Palestinian cities in the West Bank, and set no time limit on their presence there.
The unprecedented incursions are prompting Palestinian and other Arab pleas to the UN Security Council for intervention, and also deepening a rift inside the Israeli government, with Labour Party leaders so far resisting calls from more junior party members to bolt the coalition.
The repeat invasion represents the harshest Israeli military move ever against the PA, and a partial reversal of the pull-outs from the cities implemented under the Oslo B accord at the end of 1995. It has been carried in gradual phases over the past three days, in the wake of last Wednesday's assassination by Palestinian radicals of the Israeli Tourism Minister, Mr Rehavam Ze'evi. An estimated 20 Palestinians have been killed in the process.
The PA yesterday outlawed the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which claimed responsibility for the assassination of Mr Ze'evi. In a statement, the Palestinian high council on national security declared as "outlaw, any group which, in the name of Abu Ali Mustafa, carried out suspect actions which harmed the supreme interest of our people and gave Israel the opportunity to intensify its repression of our people."
The armed wing of the PFLP claimed the October 17 assassination of Mr Ze'evi in revenge for the August slaying of their leader Abu Ali Mustafa. The armed wing had taken the name of "Martyrs of Abu Ali Mustafa".
In Bethlehem, troops have now moved more than a mile into Palestinian-held territory, to the end of the street where the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, maintains an office. Despite this, Palestinian gunmen still managed to open fire on the nearby Jewish neighbourhood of Gilo last night.
On the outskirts of Qalkilya, an Israeli flag flies over a former PA headquarters building. In Tulkarm, troops yesterday moved past a road-sign ironically pointing the way to a non-existent "Seeds of Peace" joint industrial centre; petrol tankers were delivering supplies to newly established positions, suggesting the army would be staying for some time. Tanks and troops are also deployed on what was Palestinian-held land around Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah. Only Jericho and the Palestinian-run sections of Hebron have not been affected.
Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, assured his ministers yesterday he had "no desire" to keep the army inside Palestinian territory forever and that the situation would "not escalate". The troops, he said, were trying to locate and arrest members of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine involved in last week's assassination of Mr Ze'evi, and to thwart suicide bombers and other attackers. Nevertheless, Mr Sharon has also told his Likud Party he does not believe the PA will extradite Mr Ze'evi's alleged killers, as he has been demanding, and that his government will therefore shortly formally brand the PA an entity sponsoring terrorism and act against it accordingly.
While most Knesset members from the Labour Party, Mr Sharon's junior coalition ally, now want to leave the government, the Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres and the Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, are holding sway.
Indeed, Mr Peres is now in the US urging the Bush Administration to "make Arafat switch from words to deeds" in confronting his own radicals.