After innumerable last-minute hitches, Israel and the Palestinians are tonight finally going to sign a new peace deal - the accord both sides say they hope will revive their strained relations and put them on the path to a permanent settlement.
Days of empty ultimatums and missed deadlines finally came to an end late last night, when the Palestinian peace negotiator, Mr Nabil Sha'ath, emerged from a meeting in Gaza between Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and the United States Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, to announce that he had "good news". Agreement had been reached, he said, on the new accord, and it would be signed tonight at the Egyptian Red Sea port of Sharm al-Sheikh.
Palestinian sources indicated that it was Mr Arafat who made the final concession that smoothed the way to today's signing ceremony - withdrawing his demand for the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners, and accepting the last offer of the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, of 350 prisoner releases.
Also, a compromise was evidently reached on the other problematic clause in the accord, the clause that outlaws "unilateral acts" by either side. The Palestinians were seeking a wording that would prohibit the establishment by Israel of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank; the Israelis also wanted the clause to bar Mr Arafat from issuing a unilateral declaration of statehood, should negotiations break down in the future.
If it was Mr Arafat who showed the eventual "flexibility", as the Palestinians put it, that was because the deal to be signed today represents a major improvement for him over the agreement it supersedes, the Wye River accord, signed last October but then halted by the former Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu.
The new deal provides for the opening of "safe passage" routes for Palestinians to travel across Israel from the West Bank to Gaza. It allows for the building of a major Palestinian sea port in Gaza. It recommits Israel to the handover of another 11 per cent of the occupied West Bank - to give Mr Arafat full control over a total of 42 of the territory. And, critically, it states that the two sides will aim to resolve all outstanding disputes between them - and sign a permanent peace accord that would presumably include the establishment of an independent Palestinian state - by September 2000.
"We hope that this will usher in a new era of peace," said Mr Sha'ath last night. Encouragingly, the Israelis were saying exactly the same thing. The Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Mr Haim Ramon, also spoke of "a new era".
Mr Sha'ath's announcement successfully concluded a day during which, at times, efforts to finalise the accord had descended into farce. At one point, Mr Arafat was quoted as saying that the deal was done. Shortly afterwards he asserted firmly: "We don't have an agreement, we still have difficulties."
Signs of an imminent happy ending, though, came when the Israelis sent an advance team to Sharm al-Sheikh to help prepare for the signing ceremony, placed a plane on standby to fly Mr Barak there, and leaked word that the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, had been told to be ready to accompany him. Mr Barak and Ms Albright were desperate to get the new deal signed today, so that they can turn their attention to the Syrian front, and a speedy resumption of the peace talks with President Hafez Assad which were halted in the spring of 1996. Indeed, Ms Albright will meet Mr Assad today in Damascus.
But Mr Barak was not so desperate as to budge on the prisoner numbers. And Mr Arafat had been digging in his heels on the issue, in part because of his unpleasant memories of the angry Palestinian protests in Gaza last October, when the Wye River peace deal provided for the release of only 100 Palestinian prisoners.
Ms Albright could make an unscheduled visit to Beirut today, with a message to the Lebanese leadership to finalise their proposals for peace talks with Israel, sources said in Beirut said yesterday.