Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr Shlomo Ben-Ami, yesterday cut short a trip to Europe.
He cancelled meetings with Russian and French ministers and even with the American Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, to fly home to Israel for late-night talks with Palestinian leaders, amid rumours of imminent dramatic progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
The meeting, which was getting underway at midnight last night at the Erez border crossing betweeen the Gaza and Israel, also involved the Israeli Tourism Minister, Mr Amnon Shahak, and Palestinian negotiators, Mr Saeb Erekat and Mr Abu Ala. It came after a marked reduction in Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent days.
This was itself a consequence of several secretive meetings including the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, various Israeli ministers and the heads of the two sides' security apparatuses.
Earlier in the day Mr BenAmi had said it was near-impossible that the sides would be able to reach a peace accord, as he and others had been publicly hoping until recently, before President Clinton leaves office on January 20th. Nevertheless, the minister had added that he still intended to use the few days Mr Clinton had left "to try to achieve what is almost impossible, to reach a definitive [peace] accord".
Tellingly, sources on both sides described yesterday as "the quietest day" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the so-called Al-Aqsa intifada broke out more than three months ago.
There was only a single reported shooting incident, and an attempted bombing in the heart of Jerusalem was prevented. A passer-by in the ultraOrthodox Meah Shearim neighbourhood saw what she said was a Palestinian man throwing a package into a garbage can, and alerted her son.
He found a bag containing explosives and a mobile phone, and ripped away wires linking the phone to the bomb. Half a minute later, he said in subsequent interviews, the phone rang. Police sappers detonated the device in a controlled explosion, and said that, the phone call would have detonated the bomb, if undiscovered, and that the damage would have been widespread.
In a further sign of reduced tension, the Israeli army yesterday removed a weeks-long blockade from Palestinian towns in the West Bank, and reopened main roads in Gaza, the airport in Gaza, and bordercrossings between the West Bank and Jordan, and between Gaza and Egypt.
In a speech in New York earlier this week Mr Clinton publicly set out his suggested terms for a peace deal, terms he had outlined privately to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators last month. Israel has accepted these, albeit with major reservations regarding a clause that would see Israel relinquishing sovereignty to the Palestinians on Temple Mount.
The Palestinian leadership has expressed far-reaching objections to many of the clauses, but particularly to the idea of abandoning the demand for a "right of return" to Israel for millions of Palestinian refugees.
Mr Danny Yatom, a senior adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, said last night that he did not anticipate a breakthrough in the next few days, but the sides were seeking to "summarise" the areas in which they have made progress in recent months. At the very least, Mr Clinton has been hoping to seal his Presidency with an agreed framework for further progress.
AFP adds: Mr Arafat yesterday accused Israeli troops of attacking Palestinians with depleted uranium shells, claiming such weapons were internationally banned.
Speaking after a meeting with President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia. Mr Arafat said he had discussed the "military, economic and logistical blockade" on the Palestinians.
His allegations followed an earlier statement by a military spokesman in Jerusalem that Israel had used US-made depleted uranium shells, but only in the navy, and had abandoned them a year ago.
"The shells of the kind used by NATO were used by the navy for Vulcan-Planex cannon, but they were taken out of service a year ago," the spokesman said.
"There is no risk of radiation with this type of shell, and all necessary precautions were taken over the years."
He refused to explain why the uranium shells were withdrawn from service, saying: "The armed forces do not give out information on why they use this or that piece of weaponry." He also said the weapons "were not used in Lebanon".
The 20mm cannon which can fire between 4,000 and 6,000 rounds per minute are used on the Israeli navy's Shar class gunboats.
The use of the depleted uranium shells was earlier reported in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, which said they had been used for 20 years, and on occasions teams of soldiers slept next to stockpiles of the shells.
The paper quoted soldiers as saying the use of these shells had been rare, as they were only used in operations and not in exercises. Their first use was in 1985 when an Israeli gunboat sank a boat carrying a Palestinian commando group.