MIDDLE EAST: The Israeli government is today to begin a "strategic review" of its ties with President Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA).
Some hard-liners in the Israeli defence establishment are calling for a "pre-emptive assault" on the authority, right-wing ministers are demanding that Israel formally cancel the Oslo peace accords, and even moderates in the cabinet are insisting that there can be no further dialogue unless the authority severs the links Israel claims it is maintaining with Iran.
The Bush administration is waiting for the results of the review before deciding when, or even whether, to send back its peace envoy, Mr Anthony Zinni, to the region. The Americans also want to avoid pitching Mr Zinni into a period of renewed daily hostilities.
After almost a month of relative calm, a 71-year-old Israeli, Mr Avi Boaz, was murdered near Bethlehem yesterday, in an attack claimed, according to some reports, by the "al-Aqsa Brigades" of Mr Arafat's Fatah faction. On Monday, an Israeli soldier was shot dead by the same group, which said it was avenging the killing, earlier that day, of one of its West Bank leaders, Raed Karmi, who was blown up near his home in Tulkarm.
Mr Boaz, a building contractor who also held US citizenship, was a familiar figure in the Bethlehem area, where he often bought supplies. He was accompanied yesterday by a Palestinian friend, who later said he had been forced out Mr Boaz's car by Palestinian gunmen at a PA roadblock. Mr Boaz's bullet-riddled body was found in the car by PA police, and handed over to the Israelis.
Palestinian police last night arrested the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a radical group which claimed the assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister, Rehavam Zeevi, in October.
Mr Arafat and his colleagues meanwhile insist they are trying to impose a ceasefire, and blame Israel for setting off this latest sequence of attacks by killing Mr Karmi, who had acknowledged killing two Israeli restaurateurs in Tulkarm last year. Both Fatah and Hamas yesterday issued statements reaffirming their commitment to at least a limited cease-fire. "But there is a limit to our patience," said Fatah's West Bank chief, Mr Hussein al-Sheikh.
Mr Sharon has never committed himself to halting what Israel calls its "targeted attacks" on alleged intifada kingpins.