DID ISRAEL DO IT?

Israeli Health Minister Ephraim Sneh suggested in an interview with the Washington Post that his government was behind Shakaki's assassination, but then retracted the statement, and later said the newspaper's account was wrong. The Post stands by the story. "The only people who could have made the decision to kill Shakaki were the top five ministers, and Sneh isn't one of them," says TIME's McGeary. "Still, he could have known about it: it is a working assumption on all sides that the government was behind the hit. It is also in the interests of the Israelis to have the Palestinians think that they ordered the assassination. That way they can show there will be harsh consequences to terrorist violence."