There are continuing terror alerts around town and also in Northern Tel Aviv. An unprecedentedly thorough roadblock is at Jerusalem's north-end (details) and the IDF has closed 2 Arab villages and is conducting searches (details).

Newspapers today have photos of the 3 fresh-faced teenagers murdered Tuesday night in Itamar by a gunmen from Arafat's Fatah group and also from the funeral of the grandmother/granddaughter who died in the Petah Tivka bombing. Beit Furik - the village where the Itamar terrorist originated - is under curfew (punitive measure?).

Authorities say that the Itamar attack shows that Jenin-based terror organizations have begun to regroup and that the IDF will need to re-enter Jenin soon. After the first shootings on the basketball court, students began to follow the "protocol" that the school has for a terror attack, but some students were gunned down as they ran to the dining hall(disturbing details).

Yesterday the talk on the radio was about the return of the terror wave (though only a couple of days ago we were hearing that the actual number of attempted attacks was down 85%); the opening of telephone "support lines" (in Hebrew,. Arabic, Russian, Amharic); the immanent-or-always-destined-replay/inadequacy/failure of Operation Defensive Shield; posturing among Sharon, Labor leader/Defensive Minister Ben-Eliezer, Labor challenger Haim Ramon regarding the building of a "long fence" with the West Bank.

Today on the radio it was: Mondial, Mondial, Mondial. That is to say the world soccer final: Israelis flying to Tokyo; university students cutting classes. Some of my co-workers are also totally occupied with this.