When construction at Qalandiya is completed in the coming weeks, the remaining gaps in the 26-foot (eight-meter) walls will close and those still permitted to travel between the two cities will be channeled through a warren of identity and security checks reminiscent of an international frontier.

The Israeli military built the crossing without fanfare over recent months, along with other similar posts along the length of the vast new "security barrier" that is enveloping Jerusalem, while the world's attention was focused on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.

But these de facto border posts are just one element in a web of construction evidently intended to redraw Israel's borders deep inside the Palestinian territories and secure all of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and to do it fast so as to put the whole issue beyond negotiation. As foreign leaders, including Tony Blair, praised Sharon for his "courage" in pulling out of Gaza last month, Israel was accelerating construction of the West Bank barrier, expropriating more land in the West Bank than it was surrendering in Gaza, and building thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements.

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Monday, security forces removed the settlement's 120 families amid tears and fury but no physical resistance, completing the evacuation of all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip in less than a week. The military originally said it would take three times as long.

Embittered Netzarim residents directed their ire at Sharon for going back on his word. In an attempt to reassure the Israeli right, the prime minister told the Jerusalem Post that he will continue expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which are home to about 400,000 people. "There will be building in the settlement blocks," he said. "Each government since 1967, right, left and national unity, has seen strategic importance in specific areas [in the occupied territories] I will build."

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At midnight Monday, as the deadline passed for Israelis to leave the 17 condemned settlements in the Gaza Strip and four small ones in the northern West Bank, the government was still banking on most of the 8,000 settlers going quietly.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has tried to lure them out with generous compensation packages far above the true value of the properties left behind and with appeals to consider the national good. But at the same time, the army has spent months planning for the unwelcome prospect of prying out those who intend to make a last stand in defense of Israel's most controversial colonies. Tens of thousands of soldiers and police have been trained to remove the settlers "with determination and sensitivity," riot control methods have been softened up from those used against Palestinians, and plans have been laid to move the last settlers by sea if all else fails.

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Abbas added: "We should [after the Gaza pullout] immediately move to permanent-status negotiations to deal with the issue of East Jerusalem, the capital of the future state of Palestine, and the issues of refugees, borders and water."

Bush said, "We have reached a moment of hope" and "a great achievement of history is within reach: the creation of a peaceful democratic Palestinian state." He added: "I believe the Palestinian people are fully capable of justly governing themselves in peace with their neighbors. I believe the interests of the Israeli people would be served by a peaceful Palestinian state. And I believe now is the time for all parties in this conflict to move beyond old grievances and act forcefully in the cause of peace."

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At one hospital, staff pierced children's eardrums to apply an experimental medication yet to be approved in any country. At another, patients with senile dementia had their thumbprints applied to consent forms for experimental drugs.

Israel's health minister, Dan Naveh, said he was "shocked" at what he described as a failure of his department and some of Israel's hospitals. Jacques Michel, the former director of Hadassah Hospital who triggered the comptroller's inquiry with a public warning about the abuses in 2001, Tuesday called for the prosecution of the doctors.

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"People here say they want to go to the beach. They dream about it," Eltayef says. "But they also need housing and healthcare and more schools. Once the Jews are gone, we have a plan to build homes and shops and develop the beach for tourists. It will be a paradise."

First, however, there is the problem of what the settlers will leave behind. The Gush Katif Jewish settlements consume about 4,000 acres of the Gaza Strip between Khan Yunis and the sea, penning Palestinians behind the army watchtowers. But the estimated 8,000 settlers in Gaza must leave this summer or be removed by force as part of Ariel Sharon's unilateral "disengagement plan." After that, the Palestinians will finally gain control of what they describe as the last reserve of land in the territory, to help cope with a rapidly growing population and to provide for thousands of people bulldozed from their homes by the Israeli army. But the fate of the settlers' homes is still unresolved.

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Those Israelis who cast the Nobel Peace Prize winner as one of the "Oslo criminals" for attempting to make peace with the Palestinians a decade ago might say he cannot bear to reflect on his failure. But the octogenarian former prime minister is almost as reluctant to talk about a not-too-distant future: what Israelis call "the day after."

Only the very pessimistic -- or optimistic for those who share the views of the hardcore of Jewish settlers -- now doubt that Ariel Sharon intends to carry through his "unilateral disengagement plan" to pull out of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli prime minister has staked his political future on removing the 8,000 Jewish settlers living there. The Israeli public overwhelmingly backs the move as a step toward "separation" from the Palestinians, and Peres has taken his Labor Party into the government to ensure it goes ahead.

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Palestinians have accused Sharon of using the political credit gained overseas for his unprecedented plan to remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip as a cover to consolidate Israel's grip on Arab East Jerusalem and prevent it from becoming the capital of a Palestinian state. Israel claims the entire city as its capital.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said he suspected Sharon was trying to preempt negotiations about the future of the city. This could prove the single largest obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, because the Palestinians insist they will not relinquish their claim to East Jerusalem. "Without Jerusalem there will be no stability, no security and no peace," said Qureia.

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Along the way he has been a persistent embarrassment to the Israeli government as a fervent Zionist who claims to reflect the true soul of the Jewish state by resisting its oppression of Palestinians. He has been arrested many times, but this week, for the first time, the 45-year-old director of Rabbis for Human Rights was convicted for his form of resistance.

"The way to be pro-Israel is to work for a better Israel, and the real Zionism is to work for an Israel that is not only physically strong but morally strong," he said. "There is a false equation that if you voice any criticism of Israel you are delegitimizing Israel at some level. I believe the opposite."

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Israel transferred responsibility for security in Jericho to the Palestinians Wednesday in a largely symbolic step toward reviving the peace process. The army has not been into the heart of the West Bank town in six months. Further withdrawals will follow, beginning with Tulkarm, a more volatile city that was home to the man responsible for last month's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed five people.

Officials on both sides heralded the symbolism of Wednesday's move as a turn away from the hopelessness created by the intifada. But some of Jericho's residents saw a less dramatic symbolism represented by removing the physical barriers at the checkpoint but leaving the soldiers in place. "There are many deals made with Israel and they haven't fulfilled any of them," said Walid Baraba, a restaurant owner in Jericho's main square. "You always have to look carefully to see if what they say is what you get."

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Dams and pumping stations have diverted almost 90 percent of the river's water to leave parts of the surrounding valley and the Dead Sea on the brink of ecological disaster.

On Tuesday, Israel's environment minister and Jordanian royalty met on a small island in the river to discuss the crisis. But the only area of agreement between them was that the most obvious solution -- restoring the original water supply -- is not even up for discussion.

The Jordan River provides Israel with nearly a third of its water supply, and Jordan relies on dams to sustain agriculture in the area. With demand ever increasing for the most precious commodity in the region, neither country is prepared to give up a drop. "Unfortunately, environmental policies are governed by politics," said Jordan's Prince Hassan Bin Talal, brother of the late king. "We're talking about a 70-mile zone of crisis. We don't have a comprehensive peace, but I don't see why we have to continue with the policy of mutually assured destruction of the environment and resources."

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The report by the Adva Center in Tel Aviv, which monitors social and economic trends, concludes that the consequences go deeper, skewing Israeli politics and creating a more divided society. It says: "The second intifada has hurt Israel deeply, resulting in a cessation of economic growth, in a lowering of the standard of living, in the debilitating of its social services, in the dilution of its safety net, and in an increase in the extent and depth of poverty.

"The price ... puts the 37 years of occupation into an entirely new perspective." In addition to costing more than 4,000 lives on the two sides, the occupation has caused more than a decade of political instability, including the collapse of five governments and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

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There is growing international pressure to secure a comprehensive cease-fire by Palestinian armed groups and an Israeli commitment to curtail its attacks. Mubarak's office said he had made the offer in the light of the delicacy of the present stage of the peace process, and "in an endeavor to seize the auspicious opportunity to achieve tangible progress on the Palestinian track." King Abdullah of Jordan will also be present.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said his authority wanted the summit to secure Israeli commitments that would help establish a comprehensive cease-fire and end more than four years of intifada.

Abbas has won the commitment of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to end their war on Israel and switch to political tactics if Israel agrees to halt its attacks on the occupied territories, end assassinations and other killings, and abandon its pursuit of wanted Palestinian fighters.

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The bulldozers were preparing the ground for hundreds of new homes, despite the Israeli government's claim that it is not expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Like other building work along the route of the barrier, it seems to be an attempt to ensure that the land between the fence and the 1967 border remains in Israeli hands in any final agreement with the Palestinians.

"When they built the fence, we said they would use it to build a much bigger settlement, and they would take our land to do it," said Omar, whose olive and citrus groves are now encircled. "It is very clear to us, they are planning to confiscate all of our land and drive us from here. They came and told us to finish harvesting because they were going to begin building 80 houses. They are beginning with my neighbor's land, but if they do it there they will do it on mine."

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The unexpected decision by Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in an Israeli prison, to break with the dominant Fatah movement and register as a presidential candidate in the Palestinian election appeared to complicate Sharon's coalition problems. The Israeli prime minister's administration is facing collapse after his main coalition partner, the Shinui Party, caused the defeat of the annual budget in Parliament, threatening Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Sharon promptly sacked Shinui ministers from his Cabinet, leaving the administration with just 40 seats in the 120-seat Parliament. The secular Shinui had objected to Sharon's "bribing" religious parties with tens of millions of pounds in budget allocations to win their support.

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There was speculation in Palestinian political circles that the Palestinian leaders might be traveling to Paris to accompany Arafat back to the occupied territories, either after his death or to die on the ground he fought over for decades. News of the visit came as expectations mounted that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair would announce a major initiative to revive the Middle East peace process when they meet in Washington this week.

British government sources dismissed talk of a "Madrid-style" conference in London in January, along the lines of the conference that kickstarted the Oslo process after the 1991 Gulf War. But it is understood that the prime minister has secured Bush's agreement to try to revive the Middle East road map.

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But Arafat has done little to prepare the system he dominates for his demise. He wields unchallenged authority over every major institution -- the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization and an array of armed forces -- through a system of loyalty, patronage and fear. He entrenched his control by ensuring that no potential rivals grew strong enough to challenge his authority, and no single figure is likely to emerge to replace him in those roles.

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Until now, Palestinian politicians have been reluctant to speak openly about the next leader, mainly because Arafat would not allow it but also because it would be seen as a betrayal, a surrender to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been successful in marginalizing him.

Arafat's ill health, which has dogged him for years, was apparent only a fortnight ago when he met with a small group of British journalists. He frequently rambled from issue to issue, and raised odd conspiracy theories that ranged from Iran to Chile.

The sudden deterioration in his condition came less than 24 hours after his arch-rival, Sharon, pushed through the Knesset his planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. That offered a chance to break the Middle East stalemate.

If Arafat is unable to continue as leader of the Palestinians, that too will change the politics of the region. The U.S. and Israel, and lately Britain, have refused to work with him, claiming he is unreliable and untrustworthy.

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At the end of two days of at times raucous and bitter parliamentary debate, Sharon was forced to rely on the opposition to carry through his "unilateral disengagement plan" after his Likud Party split over the removal of all Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and a small part of the West Bank. Sharon won, with 67 of the 120 M.P.'s voting for the plan and 45 against. The remainder abstained.

Israel's deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said: "The state of Israel is moving forward. We are going to change the status quo in the Middle East. We are going to make painful concessions. There is no return from this."

Four cabinet ministers, including Sharon's arch-rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, who voted in favor, nonetheless threatened to resign in a fortnight unless the prime minister agreed to a national referendum on the plan. The small National Religious Party also threatened to walk out of the government if there was not a plebiscite. But Sharon continued to resist the pressure, saying that a referendum would delay the withdrawal by a year.

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The prime minister's former allies among Jewish settlers and the land-grabbing right are against him now for the same reason his peacenik opponents of many years rally to his support. They all believe that Tuesday's vote in the Israeli Parliament backing the removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip is a historic step that will inevitably lead to the unraveling of his life's work at the vanguard of expanding Israel's colonies and borders.

With it, the prime minister may also be realigning Israeli politics by turning his back on the once powerful religious and far-right factions in Parliament to emerge as the champion of the center. Some of his former Israeli critics now go so far as to compare him to Israel's visionary first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.

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