For months, increasing violence has threatened to explode in Israel and the territories. In late March, it finally did. For the last three weeks Israel has been engaged in the largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War. After the "Seder massacre," a suicide bombing in the seaside city of Netanya that killed 29 Israelis, Sharon launched a furious offensive against the Palestinians. Tanks and armored cars smashed into a half-dozen West Bank cities, with helicopter gunships hovering overhead, pounding into submission densely inhabited Palestinian neighborhoods, including the historic casbah in the biblical city of Nablus. Thousands of Israeli reservists have been called up to man the guns, and the word "war" is used more and more often as a matter of course to describe the campaign's staggering death toll and reach.

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So several journalists were tipped off in advance and took positions behind trees on the sidewalk opposite the embassy. The North Koreans, refugees living in China, dressed up to look like tourists, wearing red and black "Beijing" baseball caps. And when they ran through the open gate of the Spanish embassy past stunned Chinese guards, their fate was sealed: CNN captured the dash and broadcast it worldwide. China, which normally deports North Korean defectors under a repatriation treaty with the North Korean government in Pyongyang, allowed the group to go through this time for "humanitarian reasons." Monday, the refugees arrived safely in Seoul, South Korea.

According to Norbert Vollertsen, the German physician and human rights activist who orchestrated last week's coup, it likely wouldn't have happened without intense media coverage. "The embassy scene was played over and over again on CNN and on the Internet," said Vollertsen. "When you create a big noise, then China can't do a thing. It doesn't want to be blamed in front of the whole world. A big noise will secure refugees."

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The gay couple faces arrest at any moment: Selim for being illegally on Israeli soil, Ezra for helping, hiring and sheltering him. They took time off, on Valentine's Day, to describe their personal hell.

"We feel like rats. They run after us all the time," says Ezra Yitzhak, the head of a successful plumbing business where Selim also works. "We have to think carefully about where to go, who to go with and always have papers ready to explain our situation."

Their situation is unusual in the extreme. At a time when even sympathizing with the other side is enough to be called a "traitor," an "Arab-lover" or a "collaborator," Ezra and Selim broadcast their love for one another. And in conservative societies where sexuality is rarely discussed, the two are openly gay.

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In 2020, Jews will be a distinct minority in what they call "Greater Israel," the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing both the internationally recognized state of Israel and the occupied territories, comprising the West Bank and Gaza. According to recent predictions, Arabs will form 58 percent of the total population, up from 49.5 percent today. In Israel proper, Jews will remain a majority but their percentage will drop from 73 percent today to 68 percent in two decades. Counter-terrorism and military raids may work to stave off short-term Palestinian threats, but the demographic equation puts in doubt the survival of the entire Zionist enterprise -- particularly if Israel holds on to the occupied territories.

"If we continue with the status quo, with no decision-making, we have only another 15 years," warned Arnon Soffer, the author of a report on Israeli demography that made a big splash this summer. "If we talk about Greater Israel, we're a minority from this year on."

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A statement released after Israel's Security Cabinet met in Tel Aviv said Arafat is "directly responsible for the series of attacks and therefore is no longer relevant to Israel, and Israel will no longer have any connection with him."

Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit said there would be no more contact with Arafat or his Palestinian Authority. He added that Israel had no plans to kill Arafat.

The larger political ramifications of Israel's move remained unclear. But its action in cutting off contact with Arafat, and possibly the Palestinian Authority which is charged with governing part of the occupied West Bank and Gaza territories on an interim basis under the 1993 Oslo agreement, probably represented a 10-year low in official Israeli-Palestinian relations, and gave rise to renewed speculation about the fate of the Palestinian Authority leader. While increasing numbers of Israelis have apparently come to believe that any alternative would be preferable to Arafat, many analysts, Israeli and Palestinian, argue that removing the 72-year-old Palestinian leader would only further destabilize the deteriorating situation.

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Last Saturday night they chose to die -- and kill -- together. They detonated their belts of explosives almost simultaneously, standing about 10 yards apart in a crowded pedestrian area in downtown Jerusalem. It was 11:30 p.m. and the streets were full of young Israelis sipping drinks at the terraces of outdoor cafes, strolling with friends and talking on their mobile phones. The double blasts, which were followed a half-hour later by the explosion of a booby-trapped car parked nearby, killed 10 Israelis -- the youngest 14, the oldest 21. (One pair of victims, Golan Turjeman and Assaf Avitan, both 15, were also childhood buddies.) Scores of others were wounded, some critically, by the explosions, carefully planned to hurt as many people as possible. Hamas, a radical Islamic organization, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

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The declaration that the P.A. was a terrorist-supporting entity was more of a symbolic sanction against Arafat, a man who has worked hard to shed the image of arch-terrorist he acquired in the 1970s, than a decision bearing legal and economic implications. Even so,, angered members of the Labor Party, who chose to walk out of the five-hour long meeting, which ended after 2 a.m. early Tuesday morning.

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As America's emissaries prepared to set foot here, Israel went on high alert, expecting a major terror attack in retaliation for the high-profile assassination of Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, the leader of the military wing of the extremist Islamic organization Hamas in the West Bank, killed Friday by Israeli missiles. The Palestinian street, meanwhile, seethed with anger and calls for revenge.

"It's frustrating and depressing," said Ziad Abu Amr, a moderate member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a political scientist based in Gaza. "Every time there's an opening you start hoping, but immediately something happens and wastes the opportunity."

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As Americans grapple with the possibility of ticking time-bomb scenarios in the wake of Sept. 11, the once unthinkable is being openly talked about: torture. In a column titled "Time to Think About Torture," liberal Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter mused whether torture would "jump-start the stalled investigation into the greatest crime in American history." Alan Dershowitz, normally known as a staunch civil libertarian, told Newsweek: "I'm not in favor of torture, but if you're going to have it, it should damn well have court approval."

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"Sharon has taken me back 2,000 years. I'm in the Stone Age now!" jokes Abu Snour. "I believe they destroyed my shop just to break my will, but you see, I'm still here."

Under intense American pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered his troops to pull out of Bethlehem and the adjoining village of Beit Jala. The withdrawal, delayed several times by continuing gunfights between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen, took place Sunday night and early Monday morning.

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Tanks have rolled into half a dozen West Bank cities since Wednesday, surrounding or penetrating them, taking up strategic positions meant to besiege the towns and intimidate their inhabitants with heavy gunfire, killing at least two dozen Palestinians. The raids were both punitive and preventive, according to Israeli officials, who said they had no other choice but to take action against Palestinian terrorists in the wake of Wednesday's high-profile murder.

"As long as terrorism continues without arrests [by the Palestinian Authority]," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at a Sunday cabinet meeting, "we will make the arrests; if there are no counterterrorist actions, we will act to prevent terrorist actions."

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Just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly declared he was ready to accept a Palestinian state if it met Israel's security requirements and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reaped fresh international support for his cause, the killing of an extremist by extremists threatened to unleash a new round of bloody attacks and counterattacks. It cast a large question mark over Israel's policy of relative military restraint toward Palestinian civilians and targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants -- and an equally large question mark over Arafat's desire or ability to bring the killers to justice. It seemed likely to further destabilize Sharon's unity government -- with consequences that could push Israelis and Palestinians into even more polarized positions.

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This was music to the ears of thousands of disgruntled Palestinians, desperate for a savior.

"They were excellent remarks and reflected the attitudes of the Palestinian people," said Ahmed, a 24-year-old pharmacology student at al-Najjah University in Nablus, a town in the northern hills of the West Bank. He refused to provide his last name.

But bin Laden's words were certainly not welcomed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Eager to avoid the mistakes of 1991, when Palestinians embraced Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as their hero instead of siding with the more powerful coalition led by Americans in the Gulf War, Arafat made sure that Palestinian policemen were out in force on Monday to repress demonstrations of support for bin Laden and prevent cameramen and journalists from reporting the possibly embarrassing street events.

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And at dawn Wednesday, exactly a week after Israel and the Palestinians sat down to sign a cease-fire, Israeli bulldozers and tanks penetrated Palestinian territory in a retaliatory raid on Palestinian positions and a police station that left at least six Palestinians dead.

The numbers are depressing, the routine violence numbing: At least 28 people have died since last week's cease-fire, the sixth broken truce in a year. The attack in Elei Sinai, the first of its kind on a Gaza Jewish settlement, buried hopes that Israelis and Palestinians would find their way back to the negotiating table in the near future despite a recent push by the United States to ease tensions in the Middle East.

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On most days the peace there is almost celestial.

"But in a moment it can turn into hell," said Isam Awwad, the chief architect in charge of the sacred space.

Hell was unleashed after Ariel Sharon, then a right-wing opposition leader and now Israel's prime minister, visited the site on Sept. 28, 2000, in the company of hundreds of heavily armed policemen. Palestinians seized on the visit to riot. Israeli police killed unarmed protesters the next day after Friday prayers. Pictures of blood spilled on hallowed ground, the site of Islam's third-most sacred shrine, sent Muslims into a frenzy of pain and anti-Israeli hatred. Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel proper as well as thousands around the Muslim world took to the streets to protest the brutality of the police crackdown and the "defilement" of their mosque by Sharon. A new uprising, or intifada, was born.

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The meeting, first scheduled five weeks ago as a step toward ending a year of fighting, was repeatedly nixed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who insisted that all Palestinian violence should stop before talks for implementing a cease-fire could begin. Just last week, Sharon ignored American pleas for the meeting to take place and demanded that 48 hours of absolute quiet precede it.

The meeting's outcome matched the low enthusiasm of its participants. Israel and the Palestinians reaffirmed their best intentions in a joint statement: They vowed to resume security coordination, stop the violence, ease military closures on Palestinian areas and basically follow the recommendations made by the international Mitchell Commission in May. But they mentioned no timetable for the redeployment of Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza and said that they would meet again in about a week.

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The walls of people's homes here are covered with posters glorifying Islamic terrorists and Palestinian "martyrs." The area, in the northern West Bank, has produced more suicide bombers than any other Palestinian town since the beginning of the intifada nearly a year ago. Most recently Jenin operatives lent a hand to the Israeli Arab kamikaze who killed three Israelis and wounded dozens of others at a train station Sunday. Israeli tanks moved in Monday night to seal off the area in an effort to stop local terrorists from carrying out further attacks on Israel.

But Palestinian militants have never achieved terror of the magnitude seen today in the United States.

When young armed Palestinians patrolling the streets of a refugee camp in Jenin heard the news from New York and Washington, they chuckled with glee. One of them thanked God for his mighty revenge against the United States, Israel's ally and main weapons supplier.

Elsewhere in the West Bank and in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians applauded the devastating blows, cheering openly in the streets and distributing celebratory candy to passersby. Some shouted that they hoped Tel Aviv would be next or vowed to complete what they believe Osama bin Laden has started.

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"I want you to understand that we Palestinians are not afraid of death," Yassin said, later adding that a "suicide bomber sacrifices his life for the sake of others. By protecting the dignity of his people, he becomes a martyr."

After the June 1 attack at the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv in which 21 people were killed, Yasser Arafat declared a cease-fire and asked you to stop your activities. After the killings in Nablus, will you change your policy?

Hamas was established to resist and kick out the occupier. Hamas never considered freezing its activities. We don't get red or green lights from anybody. The military wing decides what to do.

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Just a week prior to the bombings, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, told Salon in an interview: "A suicide bomber sacrifices his life for the sake of others. By protecting the dignity of his people, he becomes a martyr."

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Days later, the two sides are still holding their breath, expecting a tentative truce between them to founder at any moment. Although the number of violent incidents has gone down since Friday's carnage, neither the cease-fire announced by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Saturday under intense international pressure nor Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policy of "restraint" seems capable of stopping the bloodshed for very long.

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