An Israeli soldier was badly hurt in an explosion near the Netzarim settlement in Gaza, and peace negotiators reported little progress in their new effort to reach an accord before Israel's election on February 6th. Yet yesterday was a good day, relatively speaking, for Israel's embattled Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak.
For the first time in weeks it was his opponent, the hardline Likud leader, Gen Ariel Sharon, rather than Mr Barak, who found himself under public and media attack.
The day began badly for Gen Sharon with news of the publication in the US of an interview he had given the New Yorker magazine last autumn, before he realised that he would be leading his party into an election. In the interview, Gen Sharon brands the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, "a murderer and a liar . . . a bitter enemy".
Those comments stand in contrast to the more conciliatory tone he has taken as regards Mr Arafat in recent weeks, sending him a festive greetings message and insisting that he would try to negotiate a peace accord with the Palestinian leader.
Perhaps more damaging, however, is the scepticism he expressed to the New Yorker regarding the prospects for a permanent resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "It cannot be achieved", he is quoted as saying. The best Israel could hope for was "a non-belligerency pact".
Again, these reported comments contrast starkly with the tone of Gen Sharon's prime ministerial campaign, which features as its key slogan the assertion that "Only Sharon Can Bring Peace".
Already on the defensive because of the New Yorker story, the Likud candidate then found himself attacked by a 16-yearold girl, during an appearance at a school in Beersheba.
Invited to put questions to the candidate, Ilil Comay rose and, calmly but devastatingly, said that she blamed Gen Sharon for "causing me suffering for 16 and some years . . . and causing my father [a soldier who fought in the 1982 Lebanon war, initiated by Gen Sharon] suffering for more than 16 years . . . I don't think that you can now be elected prime minister."
Mr Sharon, who was being filmed for TV, seemed deeply discomfited by the question, but managed a reply that blamed previous Labour-led governments for the situation that had precipitated the Lebanon war.
It will take more than some awkward old comments by Gen Sharon, and fresh questions for him, to overturn the 20 per cent lead he holds over Mr Barak, however.
For that reverse, the Prime Minister needs a virtual miracle. And the signs are that, after two days of talks that both sides describe as serious, it is nevertheless not going to emerge from the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations at Taba.
Spokesmen for both sides agree that, for all the effort, the sides are as far apart as ever on key issues such as the status of Jerusalem and rights of return for Palestinian refugees. Asked to assess the prospects for a deal by February 6th, Mr Barak yesterday acknowledged that they were "very low".