Only hours after Israeli attack helicopters fired rockets at the offices of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement across the West Bank, the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, told Israelis that they should brace themselves for a long drawn-out battle of attrition with the Palestinians. He played down chances of the deadlocked Middle East peace talks resuming anytime soon.
"We are in for a long battle that will really decide our future in this country and it is a complex battle," Mr Barak said in an interview on Army Radio yesterday morning.
At the same time Mr Barak, who is under intense domestic pressure to step up Israel's military response to the Palestinian uprising and under international pressure to scale back the use of force by the Israeli army, said there was no quick, magical solution to the conflict. "If we thought that instead of 200 dead there," Mr Barak said bluntly, "that 2,000 dead would end this whole matter and that at once everything would end, then we would use much more force. But in our opinion, the opposite is the case."
Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians - Mr Sameh al-Khdour (19), during clashes at Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron, and Mr Yussef Alwadi (30), who was also died in a confrontation near Hebron, according to witnesses. An Israeli army spokeswoman said a soldier shot and wounded a Palestinian who tried to snatch his gun during violence in the village. Seventeen Palestinians were injured in the helicopter assault, which Israel said was in response to increased attacks by Palestinian militia gunmen, who killed four Israelis earlier in the week.
A 68-year-old German chiropractor, Mr Harald Fischer, was killed on Wednesday night when Israeli helicopters pounded the West Bank neighbourhood of Beit Jalla from where Palestinian gunmen have been firing on the Jewish neighbourhood of Gilo, which is located in a disputed part of Jerusalem. A 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Jihad AbuShamha, died yesterday after sustaining head wounds during clashes on Wednesday with Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. About 229 Palestinians have been killed in the seven weeks of violence.
Palestinians detonated two roadside bombs in Gaza yesterday morning, alongside a convoy of Israeli vehicles headed for the settlement of Netzarim. Gunmen carried out sporadic shooting attacks in the West Bank towards evening. Twenty-five Israelis have been killed since the hostilities erupted in late September.
In a desperate effort to quell the violence and rekindle peace hopes, US Middle East envoy Mr Dennis Ross shuttled between Jerusalem and Gaza yesterday. Mr Arafat sounded upbeat after meeting Mr Ross, saying he still believed there was a chance that President Clinton could seal a comprehensive peace deal before he left office in mid-January. Mr Barak was far less enthusiastic. Asked about the chances of another Camp David-style summit, he replied: "We are not close."