'Intelligence failure' caused latest violence

Israeli troops were operating in the narrow streets of Nablus old city for a second day yesterday, in retaliation for the bombing on the campus of Jerusalem's Hebrew University last week. In a report released yesterday, the Israeli army claimed the deaths of nine children in an air strike that touched off the new cycle of bloodshed were the result of a failure of intelligence.

Seven people died in the bombing of a student café. Five killed were Americans, bringing home the viciousness of the conflict in the Middle East to Americans as rarely before.

Familiar scenes are being repeated in Nablus. Palestinian prisoners are taken away blindfolded. Israeli tanks and bulldozers are demolishing Palestinian homes.

Yet less than two weeks before the horrific slaughter in the student café, say European diplomats and Palestinian sources, Palestinian militants were on the verge of agreeing to end attacks on civilians in Israel, though not in the occupied territories.

Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the Hebrew University bombing, said the group would consider a ceasefire if Israeli forces withdrew from West Bank towns.

Then came Israel's assassination of Hamas's military leader, Sheikh Salah Shahadah, in which the Israeli air force dropped a one-ton bomb on a crowded residential neighbourhood in Gaza, killing 14 other people, nine of them children.

In a report yesterday, the Israeli army and Shin Bet security service said that "gaps in information and assessments with regard to the presence of civilians in the apartment in which Shahadah was hiding out and nearby homes" had caused the deaths.

Yet on the ground in Gaza it was obvious that the area was a crowded residential neighbourhood of tightly packed houses. It should have been clear that dropping a one-ton bomb there, in the middle of the night, would cause terrible civilian casualties.

After the deaths in Gaza, all talk of a ceasefire ended. Hamas and other militant groups vowed a bloody revenge, although Israeli officials say they do not believe the militants were serious about a ceasefire.

Israel has launched its own retaliation, ordering tanks back into Nablus old city for the first time since April. Israeli authorities say the old city has become a centre of militant operations and that they believe the bomb used in Hebrew University was made there. Palestinians say Israel targeted Nablus because it is the only city where a 24-hour curfew has been defied.

In the past two days, Israeli soldiers have demolished several homes belonging to relatives of suicide bombers and militants who were killed after attacking Israeli civilians, leaving scores of homeless.