Relegated to "irrelevance" by Israel, squeezed by the US and all but abandoned by erstwhile backers in Europe, Mr Yasser Arafat, found himself yesterday in possibly his worst spot since launching his long battle for Palestinian independence.
This isolation, coming after Mr Arafat's failure to crack down on Islamic militants from Hamas and the jihad that Israel holds responsible for suicide bombings, has given the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, carte blanche to act.
Overnight the Israeli government declared Arafat "irrelevant", cutting all ties with him, and immediately followed suit by deploying tanks and soldiers to within 200 metres of his offices in Ramallah, on the West Bank.
"It is as if he is under house arrest," said a Palestinian analyst, Mr Ghassan Khatib, who also predicted that the Israelis will not stop only at that.
"They will not stop at that point. They will keep moving towards him, not physically, but politically.
"They will keep surrounding him. They will keep paralysing his political ability," Mr Khatib said.
But so far he noted Israel has not cut Mr Arafat's telephone lines - practically his only link to the outside world - and that the Palestinian leader was able to receive calls yesterday from several Arab leaders to discuss the situation.
But politically the situation is quite dramatic for Mr Arafat.
Mr Khatib believes that Mr Sharon, who never hid his hostility for the 1993 Oslo accords for Palestinian autonomy, has simply moved to crush them without officially condemning the agreements.
Mr Sharon "is gradually putting the Palestinian Authority out of order and taking us back to the pre-peace process situation," he said.
"In the beginning he [Sharon] put all the Palestinian-controlled areas under siege and prevented any connection with them, and later he started to undertake military operations inside the territories.
"Then he started the incursion process. Now he invalidated the areas 'A' completely," Mr Khatib said of territory under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority and into which Israel has moved troops.
Israel's top newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, agreed yesterday with this assessment, with military correspondent Alex Fishman predicting the army will launch attacks on dozens of Palestinian Authority targets "including land operations designed to reduce the 'A' zones in order to carry out clean-up operations."
Israel has said it will take into its own hands the task of tracking down and arresting suspects and Islamic militants it holds responsible for suicide bombings.
"It is a military plan that aims to say that there is no Palestinian Authority. Israel is behaving as if the Oslo accords never existed," wrote Mr Fishman.
The Israeli Public Security Minister, Mr Uzi Landau, told the French newspaper Le Monde that Mr Arafat should be sent back to Tunis, where for years Mr Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was based.
The PLO moved to Tunis after it was run out of Beirut in 1982 by an Israeli invasion of Lebanon led by the then defence minister, Mr Sharon.
Europe, a long-time and steadfast backer of Mr Arafat and his cause at times of crises, has signalled a new policy shift this week by calling on the Palestinian leader to dismantle the Hamas and Jihad "terrorist networks".
Meanwhile, the Palestinians feel that the Arabs have not done enough to support them.
Nevertheless, Mr Khatib believes that Arafat can still count on his historical and political legitimacy.
"He will remain relevant whether they [Israel] like it or not. He will remain the leader of the Palestinians as long as he is alive and fit physically," Mr Khatib said.