MIDDLE EAST: With Hamas threatening a new round of suicide bombings, some Israeli leaders acknowledging a desire to be rid of the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, and Hizbullah opening a new military front on the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, international envoys yesterday intimated that the intifada conflict was spiralling toward war.
Two Israeli women died early yesterday from wounds sustained when a gunman linked to Mr Arafat's Fatah faction opened fire in central Jerusalem on Tuesday. And although a statement from the Fatah military wing indicated that the group was now prepared to again honour a ceasefire call from Mr Arafat, it seems certain that Israel is planning a military retaliation for the killings.
Thus far, said a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, "we have employed only a fraction of our capabilities".
In Nablus, an estimated 15,000 Palestinians attended the funerals of three of the four Hamas activists killed by Israeli troops in a raid on an apartment-cum-bomb-factory on Tuesday. They were chanting for revenge. Hamas has already threatened "all-out war" to avenge the killings.
The biggest-selling Hebrew newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, ran a banner headline across its front page yesterday proclaiming, "The aim: To Get Rid of Arafat".
A political analyst, Mr Menachem Shalev, described an "eve-of-war" atmosphere. And Mr Danny Naveh, a Minister from Mr Sharon's Likud party, said the government had concluded that, whatever the alternatives to Mr Arafat, "they can't be much worse than what we have now".
Israeli officials privately acknowledge that they have no clear sense of what might ensue in the event of Mr Arafat's demise, but claim that the United States, too, has "given up" on Mr Arafat as a potential peacemaker.
So fraught are the Israeli government's relations with the Palestinian Authority that right-wing politicians are threatening to try and unseat Mr Avraham Burg, a left-wing Labour leader who is also Knesset Speaker, if he goes ahead with a plan merely to address the Palestinian parliament.
Mr Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN's special envoy in the region, said Israel and the Palestinians were "on the brink of the abyss".
The EU's foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana called the situation "very serious". And Mr Dan Kurtzer, the US ambassador in Tel Aviv, called on both peoples to urge their respective leaders to make peace.
But, as ever in the 16 months of conflict, both leaderships were trading blame, with the Palestinians accusing Israel of sparking the latest cycle of violence through its continued policy of killing of intifada kingpins.
Mr Sari Nusseibeh, Mr Arafat's Jerusalem affairs representative, asserted that while Mr Arafat wanted to return to the negotiating table, Mr Sharon had "an interest in destabilisation".
The Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, speaking to the European Parliament, pleaded with Mr Arafat to crack down on the various armed Palestinian groups, warning that he had better act before "the terror stops him".
On the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, meanwhile, Hizbullah gunmen fired mortar rounds at Israeli troops in the only disputed border area, at the Sheba Farms. Israeli planes then raided what they said were Hizbullah positions across the border . There were no reports of casualties.