The blood feud between Israel and the Palestinians shifted to the murky world of collaborators yesterday, ahead of a US truce mission.
In Bethlehem, gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a military offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, shot dead two men suspected of supplying information to Israel, and then dragged their corpses through town. They tried to string up the bodies in Manger Square before Palestinian police - fearing the repercussions of allowing such a grotesque spectacle at the birthplace of Jesus - intervened and cut them down.
Hours later to the north, near the city of Tulkaram, a pair of Israeli helicopter gunships fired three missiles at a car belonging to Muattassen Hammad, killing the mid-level commander of the Al Aqsa Brigades and a chicken farmer.
Palestinians said Hammad masterminded one of the most intriguing attacks of the 18-month uprising. In January, he rigged up a suspected collaborator with explosives, and sent him out on a suicide attack which injured his handlers from Israeli intelligence.
The twin episodes - coinciding with the arrival yesterday of the US envoy General Anthony Zinni - are further evidence of the steady brutalisation of a conflict which began with stone-throwing protests, and culminated this week in the biggest Israeli military offensive in 20 years.
Gen Zinni was to meet the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, late yesterday, but as Israeli troops spent a third night in the provisional Palestinian capital of Ramallah, and tanks thrust into Bethlehem, there was little hope of a ceasefire.
In Gaza, Palestinian militants blew up a Merkava tank, killing three crew.