ISRAEL: Eight Palestinians - including civilians, naval policemen and suicide bombers - and two Israeli soldiers died in West Bank and Gaza violence yesterday. Classical music and international soccer also fell victim to the 17-month intifada confrontation.
Mr Daniel Barenboim, the director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra who is an Israeli citizen, had planned to travel to Ramallah to give a piano master class and conduct a concert last night, saying he regarded it as his "duty" to encourage Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
However, the Israeli army said it could not guarantee his security - Ramallah is formally under the control of Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority - and that its standing ban on Israeli citizens entering the city applied to Mr Barenboim as well. Israeli forces are actually deployed in parts of the city, where Israel has also kept Mr Arafat trapped for the past three months.
A second cancellation was that of the UEFA Cup quarter-final first-leg match between Hapoel Tel Aviv and AC Milan, set to have taken place next week in Tel Aviv. Hapoel's home victory last month in the previous round, against Parma, went ahead after UEFA accepted Israeli government security guarantees. But UEFA issued a statement yesterday barring all games in Israel until further notice "in the light of the current tragic events"; Hapoel will now have to select an overseas venue for the "home" leg.
Israel's Minister of Sport, Mr Matan Vilnai, is to fly to Switzerland today to try to persuade UEFA to reconsider. But UEFA's chief executive Mr Gerhard Aigner sounded resolute, noting that the "recent escalation of violence" had now reached Tel Aviv. Indeed, several Hapoel players were eating at a Tel Aviv restaurant in the early hours of Tuesday morning when a Palestinian gunman opened fire and killed three Israelis there.
The army said yesterday it foiled another two suicide attacks - killing one man and wounding another, both of whom were carrying explosives, near Nablus in the West Bank; and intercepted another Palestinian near Kalkilya, who was blown up by his own hand-grenade and found to be carrying explosives. Two Palestinian teenagers were badly hurt by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank: their headmaster said they had thrown stones at a military convoy; the army said its soldiers had come under fire.
Most of yesterday's fatalities were in the Gaza Strip, where the army carried out raids throughout the day directed at what it said was the "terror network" in Gaza. The incursions came in the wake of a Tuesday night rocket attack from Gaza on the Israeli town of Sderot, in which a baby was injured; and in accordance with Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon's pledge to maintain an "aggressive and relentless campaign" until "the other side understands it won't achieve anything through terror \ it will be easier to enter negotiations".
Using aircraft, gunboats and ground forces, the army blew up Palestinian Authority installations, including a building in which Mr Arafat's security chiefs were about to meet, the homes of several alleged intifada kingpins, and a tunnel used to smuggle in weaponry from Egypt. Mr Arafat's Gaza residence was damaged in the raids, as was a United Nations school for the blind. Israeli gunships fired two rockets last night at a building adjacent to the one housing the Mr Arafat's offices.
Three Palestinian civilians, one of them a woman said by Palestinians doctors to have been shot in the back, were killed by troops in a raid at Abassan in the south of the strip. Three members of the Palestinian Authority's naval force were killed when a missile demolished their base.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed: the first when a routine patrol was attacked near the Egyptian border, the second during battles with armed Palestinians at Khan Younis.
President Bush has said he is alarmed by the escalating violence, and will "redouble" efforts to broker a ceasefire, but is not yet ready to return his envoy, Gen Anthony Zinni, to the region.