No wonder border towns and Pacific resorts such as Cabo San Lucas or Puerto Vallarta attract so many students at the end of term.But tropical Cancun has become the ultimate destination and youngsters from 1,100 different campuses show up for this annual rite of passage, or rather, passing out. The place has crushed coral beaches that gleam in the moonlight and palm-fringed turquoise seas where Tony Blair and family splashed last summer, but it’s like-minded party animals that draw these Easter crowds. Wet T-shirt contests, condom-blowing games, and chart-topping rock groups make Cancun the place to be.Some 65,000 teenagers are expected this month and most travel in packs. “Cancun is hook-up heaven,” enthused Jeff, a returning Spring-Breaker who declined to give his surname. His technique is to chat up girls while they queue for free beer refills, since they have nowhere to escape But he warns that you can’t leave it too late Jeff swears that willing partners tend to pair up by 2am. Other guys allegedly offer Rohypnol-laced cocktails to ease late-night seduction.Maria de Lourdes Salazar, of the Quintana Roo state hotel association, said Spring-Breakers represented just 4 per cent of the annual 1.6 million visitors to Cancun and are atypical. But this year’s turn-out will be a milestone for a tourism industry recovering rapidly from a post-11 September slump.”Kids from the US who are barely 15 ask me for pot, cocaine and ecstasy,” complained Roberto Hernandez, a taxi driver who finds such raucous behaviour embarrassing “Everyone gets so very drunk.

It’s not very refined.”Still, once a year, as reliably as the grey whales or monarch butterflies that migrate from north of the border, los Spring-Breakers come back for more.. Dr Ahmed Soubeih knew that setting foot into the silent, sun-lit street outside his hospital yesterday was highly dangerous. The Israeli army had already slaughtered more than 30 Palestinians across the occupied territories in the past 12 hours, making it the bloodiest day of the intifada. There were snipers with high-powered rifles hidden in a building not far from his front door, part of an Israeli force that swept into Bethlehem and its surrounding Arab villages before dawn. His neighbourhood was under an Israeli-imposed curfew, as was much of the urban sprawl around Bethlehem, reoccupied by Israel again even though the land was placed under Palestinian rule by the Oslo peace accords.A 1,000lb bomb dropped by an F-16 jet had flattened a local government office during a terrifying night of attacks. Helicopters had been spraying streets with fire from their heavy-calibre machine guns, picking off several of the naive and ragged youths unlucky enough to be in Yasser Arafat’s farcical national security forces.

An Israeli spy drone circled overhead.Tanks were near by, and had been shunting Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances off the streets, brazenly contemptuous of the protection afforded to rescue workers under the Geneva Conventions. And ­ with Israeli troops inside or stationed around two nearby refugee camps, Aida and Deheisheh ­ it was clear that fighting could explode at any second.So Dr Soubeih took particular care before setting off in his BMW to drive through the empty streets of Bethlehem’s suburbs to a neighbouring Palestinian hospital to collect food and medicine for his patients. “He called the Israeli army and asked them if he could go,” said his nephew, Ra’ed Isbaih. “They took details of his car, told him to wear a white shirt and no jacket, and to drive slowly.” Dr Soubeih set off at around noon According to Mr Isbaih, a sniper fired in his direction.