THE Israeli Supreme Court yesterday rejected Yigal Amir's final appeal against his conviction and life sentence for assassinating the prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, on November 4th.
The three judge panel said there was "no doubt" that Amir, an Orthodox Jewish law student, carried out the killing. Amir, who had attended every previous day of his legal proceedings, did not come to court for the verdict. He is on hunger strike to protest against his jail conditions.
Meanwhile, the escape of two Islamic Jihad members, Ghassan Rahman and Tawfik Zaban, from the high security Ashmoret Prison has created a major embarrassment for the Israeli prison authorities. It has prompted eight suspensions and a full inquiry.
The two were serving lengthy terms for, respectively, stabbing an Israeli and killing an alleged Palestinian collaborator with the Israelis.
Yesterday's Israeli prison break followed three days of unprecedented protests against both the new Israeli government and Mr Yasser Arafat's regime in the West Bank and Gaza.
The demonstrations began on Thursday in Nablus, after news broke that a Palestinian detained by Mr Arafat's security forces had died under torture. And they spread to nearby Tulkarm on Friday, when relatives of more jailed Palestinians protested against alleged ill treatment of prisoners at the local jail.
The protests turned ugly, Mr Arafat's policeman killed one of the demonstrators, relatives stormed the jail and freed some inmates, and Mr Arafat ordered another hurried inquiry.
Capitalising on the growing frustration among Palestinians over a peace process that has stalled since Mr Benjamin Netanyahu's hardline government took power in Israel in May, Islamic extremists opposed to the process are now threatening further violence against Israeli targets, and also against Mr Arafat's administration.
Hamas militants branded Mr Arafat "a collaborator" and described the protests, which continued over the weekend, as marking "the beginning of a new popular uprising against the authority . . . which sold itself to the occupier"; a new intifada, in short, this time directed against the Palestinian leadership itself.
It is hard to assess how serious this latest upsurge in street violence is. Only time will tell, as it did when the spontaneous uprising of late 1987 shocked Israel with its ferocity and its longevity.
Certainly, the conditions for prolonged protest exist in abundance: poverty, unemployment, hopelessness and, now, a sense of betrayal, a feeling that the prospects for a better future have been destroyed by Mr Netanyahu's victory.
The Netanyahu government's decision on Friday to end a four year freeze on Jewish seitlement triggered a furious reaction among Palestinians and other Arab leaders. Mr Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO is to hold emergency talks in Cairo this week.
And while Mr Netanyahu today flies to Jordan for talks with King Hussein, the overheating situation on the ground belies the anticipated smiling handshakes.