For days, Israel has been telegraphing its intentions to launch a sweeping new military offensive against the Palestinians, and to reoccupy cities and refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza. Last night’s bloody attack on a Passover seder in Netanya provides the perfect pretext.

Within minutes, military sources were telling Israeli media that the suicide bombing would have “far-reaching consequences”, code for a more extensive onslaught on the West Bank and Gaza than has been seen so far in the 18-month Palestinian uprising.

Expectations of an offensive on a far larger scale even than that seen this month – Israel’s broadest deployment of force in 20 years – have gathered pace amid deepening pessimism about an American truce mission led by General Anthony Zinni. After nearly two weeks of inconclusive security talks, Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has run out of patience. Officials were talking of a “comprehensive military confrontation”.

Last night, a spokesman for Mr Sharon told Israeli media: “We are still working to achieve a ceasefire to which we are fully committed, but if the Palestinians have decided to choose the road of terrorism… then we have to decide what measures we will take.”

In Washington, US officials said Gen Zinni would remain in the region to pursue a ceasefire, but Mr Sharon will face almost irresistible pressure to hit back hard. Last night, allies in his Likud party renewed their clamour for Israel to destroy Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

Mr Sharon has been openly chafing against American pressure to show “restraint”. In an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper this week, he said: “In retrospect, there was one commitment [to the US] that I took upon myself that was a mistake. The commitment was not to harm Arafat.”

Some commentators believe the next offensive will be far more ambitious than Israel’s sweeping reoccupation of Palestinian refugee camps earlier this month.

Although those assaults failed to arrest Palestinian suicide bombers and gunmen and disable their armouries, Israeli military officials believe that if they drive deeper into Palestinian cities and camps and stay longer, they can crush militant cells.

However, such plans, which essentialy amount to waging hand-to-hand urban combat, carry an enormous risk for Palestinian civilians.

“Sharon’s strategy now is to defeat the Palestinians with force, imposing an arrangement on them that leaves large portions of the territories in Israeli hands,” wrote Aluf Benn, diplomatic correspondent of Ha’aretz newspaper.

During the last 18 months, Israel has steadily escalated force against the Palestinians, culminating in this month’s assaults by F-16 jets and helicopters, tanks, ground forces and navy gunboats.

In the same interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, Mr Sharon practically gloated about his success in the making routine of military deployments that would once have been condemned as extreme.

“You forget how things were at first,” he said. “When we moved 300 meters into Area A, the entire world was shocked. Imagine what would have happened had we done then what we are doing today. I got the world accustomed to those incursions. Everyone understands us.”

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