LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Intense negotiations continue today in the Middle East, where 13 days of violence have taken a heavy human toll. CNN's Ben Wedemen is following the story. He joins us live right now from Jerusalem. Ben, what is going on there now?</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Linda, the diplomacy is definitely intensifying. Just a little while ago, we heard from U.N. sources that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is on his way back to Gaza. This is an unexpected and unscheduled meeting. He already met twice with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. So this will be his third meeting. And this comes after another unexpected and unscheduled meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Clearly, something is going on here, but there's not much coming out of these talks themselves. This comes against a backdrop of continued intense U.S. mediation, or intervention from U.S. President Bill Clinton, who has been on the phone with both Palestinian and Israeli leaders, trying to work out some sort of cessation to the clashes which have wracked this area for the last two weeks almost. Yesterday -- at the moment, actually, it's fairly quiet in both the West Bank and Gaza. However, yesterday, there were clashes in Ramallah in the West Bank, as well as Gaza in the town of Rafah, that's the southern end of the Gaza Strip. Despite this, the Israeli defense forces are saying that they notice a noticeable decrease in the level of clashes in those areas, and they claim that president -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has put out an order to tone down the violence, the violence that has been quite intense recently. Of course, the Palestinians deny this. They say no order was given in the first place to start the violence, and therefore there is no order going out to stop it -- Linda.</s>STOUFFER: Ben Wedemen, with the latest from the Middle East, thank you very much.
Crisis in the Mideast: Diplomacy Intensifying