Despite five more deaths over the Christmas break, and a new nadir in relations with President Yasser Arafat over his exclusion from Bethlehem's religious ceremonies, Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, asserted yesterday that the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace were now starting to improve.
"I think we have departed from the zero point and begun to move," the Foreign Minister said during a visit to the Ukraine.
His optimism is apparently based on the talks he has been holding with Mr Abu Ala, the Speaker of the Palestinian parliament. These focus on the idea of the Palestinians establishing statehood in the Gaza Strip and 42 per cent of the West Bank, with other disputes then to be resolved on a state-to-state basis. Violence erupted on a new front on Tuesday with an Israeli soldier killed and two others badly hurt in an attack by Palestinian gunmen near the Israeli-Jordan border. Israeli and Jordanian troops co-operated in trying to hunt down the gunmen, killing two of them.
Two more Palestinians were killed in Jenin yesterday. Israeli troops fired on a group of armed Palestinians who they said were en route to attack a Jewish settlement, and chased the gunmen into a building on the eastern outskirts of the city. One of the Palestinians killed, hit by a missile fired by an Israeli helicopter, was a 50-year-old man who apparently had nothing to do with the incident, Palestinian officials said.
Aides to Mr Sharon remained adamant that Mr Arafat would remain under effective house arrest in Ramallah until his forces arrested two men in the town said to have killed the Tourism Minister, Rehavam Ze'evi, in Jerusalem in October. The Prime Minister's insistence on barring Mr Arafat from Bethlehem prompted a wave of criticism - abroad and even at home.
Whatever sanctions Israel imposed on Mr Arafat, said Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau, "I would not have imposed them on the religious issue."
Meanwhile, in a partial revote largely ignored by its members, Mr Peres's Labour Party elected Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, as new leader.