CIA director Mr George Tenet has arrived in the Middle East to bolster a ceasefire effort as a face-off between Jewish settlers and Palestinians strains the patchy truce.
Mr Tenet met Egyptian President Mr Hosni Mubarak in Cairo yesterday but made no statement after talks. He has co-ordinated Israeli-Palestinian security efforts in the past and was expected to meet officials on both sides today.
Yesterday armed Jewish settlers torched Arab homes and a vegetable hothouse in the West Bank villages of al-Sawia and al-Lubban, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.
The villages are close to the settlement of Shilo where a five-month-old Jewish baby was seriously hurt when stones were hurled at a family car on Tuesday.
Thousands of settlers gathered in Jerusalem last night, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon to strike at Palestinians after more than eight months of fighting.
Mr Sharon did not retaliate against Palestinians for a suicide bombing that killed 20 people in Tel Aviv on Friday after Palestinian President Mr Yasser Arafat pledged a ceasefire on Saturday. Israeli forces say they had already introduced their own limited ceasefire.
But Israel says Arafat has yet to act on some crucial demands for ending the violence, including the arrest of Palestinian militants involved in bomb attacks.
Palestinians say the truce will only hold if they are offered some political gains from the uprising they began against Israeli occupation in late September after peace talks stalled.
They are seeking a freeze of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as proposed by a US-led inquiry into the violence.