Having reluctantly accepted a US-brokered cease-fire last Wednesday, both Israeli and Palestinian leaders are showing increasing reluctance to abide by it, but are wary of the international opprobrium that will attach to whichever side publicly declares the truce over.
Although by nightfall there had been no fatalities in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, there have been 10 deaths since the cease-fire started - five on each side - and both Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, are indicating growing frustration with a situation both describe as unacceptable.
On Monday, Mr Arafat called Mr Sharon's government "war crazed". Yesterday, in Madrid, he claimed that an 11-year-old Palestinian boy and an elderly man had been shot dead by settlers. There were confirmed reports only of a 16-year-old boy dying on Monday from injuries sustained in an earlier clash with Israeli soldiers in Gaza. Nevertheless, he pledged "personally, and in the name of the Palestinian people," to do "everything we can to be able to control the situation on our part."
Palestinian spokespeople noted bitterly that several West Bank cities still remain under military blockade. At the Gaza border crossing, nominally open, some Palestinians have been waiting five days to cross into Egypt. "We see no readiness by Israel to return to the diplomatic process," said a Fatah leader in the West Bank, Mr Hassan Al-Sheikh.
Aides to Mr Sharon, in contrast, noted that Mr Arafat's own Fatah faction of the PLO had openly taken responsibility for the killings of two Israeli settlers on West Bank roads on Monday, and that Mr Arafat's loyalist, Mr Marwan Barghouti, is threatening to escalate the Intifada in those parts of the West Bank that are not under full Palestinian Authority security control.
Mr Sharon told ministerial colleagues yesterday that the two shootings had been carried out "on Arafat's instructions". And Foreign Minister Mr Shimon Peres, after a briefing to EU diplomats yesterday, declared that "the situation cannot go on".
Some spokesmen for the settlers are calling ever more openly for an end to Mr Sharon's military "restraint," and open war against Mr Arafat.
Critically, the Bush administration is indicating considerably more sympathy for the Israeli position than for the Palestinians. Former US Middle East envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, visiting Israel, said that a "monitoring mechanism" should be introduced to save the ceasefire. "We should make it very clear who is responsible for not fulfilling those commitments. You have two Israelis who were killed yesterday [Monday]. From that standpoint obviously it looks as if the Palestinians have to do more."
The former Russian Prime Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, however, returned from a visit to the region yesterday branding Israel the key aggressor.
US President, Mr George Bush, will meet next Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, at the White House, to discuss the fragile state of the ceasefire.
White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer said: "The events in the Middle East are better than they were, following (CIA) director (George) Tenet's visit to the Middle East where he was able to work out a tentative ceasefire.
"But the events remain fragile and that's why this administration wants to remain actively engaged in trying to build confidence-building measures between the parties," he added.