THE MIDDLE EAST: Amid widespread fears of an imminent major escalation of violence, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at a Palestinian car in the southern Gaza Strip last night, killing a Hamas militant, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
At least two missiles hit the car in the town of Khan Younis, witnesses said, and an Israeli security source said the army had targeted a senior member of the Islamic militant group.
Ear;ier in the day, two Palestinian would-be suicide bombers blew themselves up close to an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip, dying when their explosives apparently detonated prematurely. The dead bombers were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Overnight, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian security official in a gun-battle in Ramallahand an Israeli woman was slightly injured when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a vehicle outside Bethlehem.
Despite calls from both sides for the urgent return of Mr Anthony Zinni, the Bush administration is still keeping the US special envoy at home - evidently believing that there is little he can do to prevent the looming direct conflict between Israel and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat.
Mr Arafat is reported to have castigated his security forces for allowing the Israeli army to deploy within 100 metres of his Ramallah headquarters in recent days, and to have told security chiefs that, were the Israelis to come any closer, this would constitute a declaration of war.
Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence officials are predicting bombing attacks on a scale Israel has never suffered before, and asserting that Mr Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO is now fully reverting to the "armed struggle".
Palestinian officials say they are unable to impose the ceasefire call issued by Mr Arafat in mid-December. "Israeli guns are being pointed at our heads," said Mr Ahmed Abdel Rahman, the Palestinian cabinet secretary.
A spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, responded that, "in the past, we gave them all the opportunities."
The authoritative Ha'aretz daily newspaper reported that while Mr Sharon is "speaking in closed forums about his hopes for getting rid of Arafat," top army officers do not believe the time is "yet right". The paper quoted defence officials describing the apparently inevitable confrontation as follows: "We're driving a truck, and the Palestinians are on a motorcycle. But the motorcycle is filled with explosives, and the crash will be painful to us as well."