The US administration moved yesterday to ensure Palestinian parliamentary elections went ahead on 25 January despite pressure from Israeli and Palestinian political circles for a delay.
Fatah and Hamas, the main election rivals, have formally launched their three-week campaigns, with Fatah presenting a new candidates' list designed to overcome the divisions in the organisation. Two independent groups which could hold the balance of power have also begun campaigning.
The campaigns were launched less than 24 hours after Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, said he might be forced to postpone the elections if Israel carried out its threat to bar voting in East Jerusalem in protest at the participation of Hamas. Although many other Palestinian officials have proposed such a delay, Mr Abbas had not personally countenanced the possibility before in public.
A White House spokesman made it clear meanwhile that President Bush wanted the elections to go ahead as scheduled, and for voting to take place in East Jerusalem. Mr Bush saw the elections as a step forward in his vision of a two-state solution to the conflict, the spokesman said.
A further threat to the timetable is the security of European Union election monitors in Gaza, which was explicitly threatened in the video released by the kidnappers of the British human rights worker Kate Burton and her parents before the family were freed on Saturday.
Following yesterday's arrest of a suspect in the kidnappings, 20 Palestinian gunmen stormed a government office in Rafah in protest at his detention. The men, from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of the mainstream Fatah movement, forced their way inside the Interior Ministry and demanded the release of their colleague. The office was empty at the time and no one was injured.
Mathias Eick, a spokesman for the EU monitors, said the situation was being