ISRAEL: New Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, cancelled a visit to Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza yesterday after Israeli tanks moved back into the town, writes Peter Hirschberg from Jerusalem.
It was yet another sign of the difficulties the United States faces in getting the two sides to begin implementing the road map peace plan.
Amid the latest spat, there were reports yesterday that President Bush is considering a visit to the region.
He is said to be increasingly worried that the US-backed plan, which has been rocked in recent days by a series of Palestinian suicide attacks, will be stillborn.
Violence in the territories continued yesterday, with Palestinians reporting that Israeli troops shot dead a 65-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy during stone-throwing clashes in Ramallah. In the West Bank city of Nablus, the army said troops destroyed an explosives laboratory.
Mr Abbas was planning to visit Beit Hanoun to survey the damage to the town after an Israeli incursion which lasted five days and which was aimed at preventing militants from firing rudimentary rockets into southern Israel.
After 15 tanks rolled back into the town's industrial area, Mr Abbas called off his visit. In a statement, he demanded that Israel "cease its escalations and invasions of Palestinian areas, because these actions only feed into the cycle of violence and deepens the hatred between the two peoples".
Israeli troops pulled out of Beit Hanoun on Tuesday, but held positions in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Residents said the army destroyed 15 houses, damaged the town's sewage system and uprooted thousands of trees during the raid.
But, in a rare move, Palestinian residents yesterday burned tyres and blocked roads to protest against the militants, who have been using their town and its environs as a launching pad for their rocket attacks, saying that this had led to the devastation wrought by the Israeli army.
With the peace plan in danger due to the latest series of suicide attacks, the New York Times reported yesterday that Mr Bush was considering a visit to the region in the next few weeks. The paper quoted an unnamed official who described the mood in the administration as one of "anxiety and desperation" following the latest scenes of violence.
Mr Bush is unlikely to visit Israel, the report said, but could meet Mr Sharon and Mr Abbas elsewhere after he attends a meeting of the leading industrial nations in the French Alps. Such direct intervention would signify a major departure by the President, who has been reticent to become intimately involved in the conflict since taking office.
Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Silvan Shalom, issued a veiled threat to Mr Abbas yesterday, saying that he "cannot hide for a long time under the excuse that Arafat is bothering him and he cannot carry out these actions [against terror\]. \ fate is in his own hands. If he does not do what is needed - ending violence and incitement - he will find himself in a short time ending up like Arafat."
Mr Abbas, however, says Israel must formally accept the peace plan - which outlines a series of steps culminating in the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005 - before the Palestinians will be prepared to take any measures. Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon has raised 15 reservations regarding the plan.
In a meeting yesterday in Washington, National Security Adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice was expected to tell Mr Sharon's bureau chief, Mr Dov Weisglass, that the US wants Israel to accept the road map as is and wants the Israeli leader to announce his acceptance of the plan publicly.