Ship of Fools editor, Simon Jenkins, is currently travelling in Israel and Palestine with the Amos Trust, which works for justice, peace and reconciliation in the region. Over the next few days, he'll be updating us with his experience of the situation on the ground in a daily online diary. For previous diary items, go here.

Chain of violence
SATURDAY 2nd JUNE

Today, grief. We hear the terrible news at breakfast. Every parent's wake-up-screaming nightmare came true last night when a Palestinian suicide bomber ripped apart the lives of at least 17 Jewish young people in Tel Aviv.

Innocent, gifted and beloved people died last night, and today the reckoning begins. It is practically a certainty that innocent, gifted and beloved people will die in the coming hours or days in acts of terrifying and cold revenge.

After breakfast, we drive north for Nazareth and Galilee. Wisam, our tour guide, was due to travel with us, but cannot come as he lives in Bethlehem and was turned back by soldiers at the checkpoint. By 11.30am he phones on the mobile to tell us that Bethlehem and the other Palestinian territories are closed and their people have been told to go to their homes. The rumour is that Sharon will shell Gaza first and then Bethlehem. Planes have already been seen in the skies over Bethlehem. The fear there must be incredible.

The big question already dominating the news reports is: "how will Israel retaliate?" It seems to be agreed that Israeli retaliation is inevitable and that it is somehow understandable and acceptable.

The Middle East is hellishly complicated. Sitting in our van as it speeds north, I try to get my brain round some of the basic questions. Is it acceptable for a modern state to direct its military power against defenceless villages such as Beit Jala, which I visited a couple of days ago? Against the children I saw playing in its streets? Isn't a modern state supposed to act with greater moral responsibility than a suicide bomber? How can killing civilians in the West Bank be considered any sort of just response to this horrible bombing in Tel Aviv?

Towards midday we arrive in the town of Ibillin, near Nazareth. Our van is air-conditioned, and we step out into an oven as the doors swing open, with temperatures in the 90s fahrenheit. We're here to meet Abuna (Father) Elias Chacour, whose family was ethnically cleansed in 1947 when Israeli forces destroyed his village in upper Galilee. Elias has dedicated his life to peacemaking, working with Israelis and Palestinians; with Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Normally a jovial man, we find him in deep shock and despair:

"Everyone is speaking of more vengeance, more killing, more destruction. What happened last night shocked me very deeply. It's not unique, not isolated. It's an act that's linked to so many others. It's a chain of violence instead of a chain of love. This attack in Tel Aviv is horrifying. Horrifying because it is horrible. Horrifying because it is the outcome of so many other things that have been done on the West Bank – destruction, killing and manhunts. Horrifying because of what will come later.

"I am afraid there will be very large massacres. Not organized by some despairing youngsters from Gaza or the West Bank who come and blow themselves up in a very absurd way in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, but state terror."

We travel on to Nazareth. Wisam phones again on the mobile. A 24-hour stay of execution has been granted after Yasser Arafat appeared on television to condemn the bombing and promise a ceasefire. We go into the Church of the Annunciation... the place where Mary met her angel and received blessing. I can't help it. I kneel on the floor and cry. Thinking of the murdered teenagers and their families... thinking of the people we have met... thinking of the demonic forces pitted against Palestinians and Israelis... all of it is more than a match for my British reserve.

Earlier, Elias had spoken words which found a home in me: "I think that the monotheistic religions have failed lamentably to make any unity among human beings – whether inside themselves or between themselves." I feel the utter failure of the faith I call my own to bring about the healing it promises.

Later. At the Sea of Galilee we stand on the Mt of the Beatitudes. The wind is blowing strongly and the sea is flecked with white waves. One of us reads out the words spoken here by Jesus: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

George, who has been our driver for the week, brings us back to Jerusalem via the Jordan valley. Arriving in St George's Guest House, a Danish journalist tells us that as she returned to Jerusalem from Ramallah this afternoon, Israeli soldiers were firing randomly at the cars around her. They were firing rubber bullets – ammunition which can kill – at the sides of the cars as they queued to go through the checkpoint into the city.

Tonight I get ready to return to my home, which is in no danger of being bulldozed or bombed. The thought feels like relief and shame. The night outside is hot and still, the air heavy with violence to come.