Senior Israeli army officers are pressing for government authorisation to retake parts of the West Bank that have been handed over to Palestinian control in the course of the Oslo peace accords, in order to prevent shooting attacks from Palestinian territory on Israeli targets. And while Israel's outgoing, caretaker government, led by the defeated Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, has hitherto ruled out such action, some potential members of the incoming Sharon government are backing it.
It is an open secret that Israeli undercover units have been operating in what is called "Area A" - territory in the West Bank that is formally under the full control of the Palestinian Authority - since the early days of the ongoing Al Aksa Intifada last autumn. However, such incursions have not put a halt, for example, to the intermittent firing on Giloh - the southern Jerusalem neighbourhood built on West Bank land - from adjacent Beit Jallah, which is in "Area A".
Several senior army officers, in private briefings in recent days, have urged the government to send regular uniformed troops, with heavier arms, into Palestinian areas. And while the army's chief of staff, Gen Shaul Mofaz, has refrained from public comment on the issue, he has been highly critical of the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, charging earlier this week that Mr Arafat continues to release known Hamas bombmakers from Palestinian jails.
While Mr Barak has resisted the calls for an intensified military response, aides to his successor, Mr Ariel Sharon, have indicated that the incoming prime minister would take a "firmer" line in countering the Intifada, and one of his potential ministers, Mr Rehavam Ze'evi, yesterday backed the idea of sending Israeli troops into "Area A". Palestinian officials have consistently warned Israel against taking such a step.
Figures quoted by the Associated Press indicate that more than 400 people have now been killed in the violence, with the Palestinians accounting for seven out of every eight fatalities. In the latest incidents, an Israeli motorist was shot in the shoulder in Jerusalem overnight, and a car bomb exploded in Palestinian-controlled Hebron in what was described by Israeli military officials as a "work accident" - the premature detonation, that is, of an explosive device.
Mr Sharon is still working to forge his coalition, but has now failed to meet his first deadline - which was to have his government sworn in ahead of the visit of the US Secretary of State, Gen Colin Powell, who is due tomorrow night. His intended junior coalition partners, in the Labour Party, were yesterday discussing the procedures by which they would select their ministers to serve under Mr Sharon - a clear indication that most of the party's leaders do wish to ally themselves with him in a "unity government". At least three ministers - including the Foreign Minister, Mr Shlomo Ben-Ami - however, have made clear that they will not, as Mr Ben-Ami put it yesterday, join "the Sharon bandwagon".