Middle East talks resume after bloodshed

10.30am

JERUSALEM - Israeli and Palestinian officials have resumed high-level security talks under US pressure to help salvage a peace plan jeopardised by a week of violence in which more than 50 people were killed.

The meeting, which coincides with a new US diplomatic mission to prop up the peace initiative, was expected to focus on Israel's renewed offer to pull back from parts of the Gaza Strip in return for a Palestinian crackdown on militants.

"We will not accept a ceasefire."
Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar
Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan met senior Israeli military officials on Saturday night in the first such talks since US President George W. Bush launched the Middle East "road map" at a summit last week, political sources said.

Israeli media identified the venue as the home of US Ambassador Dan Kurtzer in the Israeli coastal town of Herzlia, a further sign of Washington's determination to push both sides to put the peace plan back on track.

But there was little cause for optimism amid vows of revenge by Palestinian militants and Israel's pledge to wage war against them "to the bitter end".

Hamas, the main group behind a campaign of suicide bombings against Israelis, said it would flatly reject any deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "We will not accept a ceasefire," Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told Reuters.

The United States has called for restraint by Israel and an end to Palestinian attacks after the spiral of tit-for-tat violence heightened international concern that the 32-month-old conflict was spinning out of control.

Veteran US diplomat John Wolf was due in Israel this weekend for separate talks in coming days with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

His original brief was to oversee implementation of reciprocal confidence-building steps mandated by the road map, which calls for creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

But following a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem and Israeli air raids against the Islamic militant group in Gaza, he was expected to find himself in the role of trouble-shooter.

Violence flared again on Saturday. Palestinian security sources said an Israeli army patrol shot dead a 19-year-old man and wounded three other people when it fired on a crowd of stonethrowers in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The army had no immediate comment.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had proposed in earlier meetings with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas a partial withdrawal from parts of northern Gaza as a proving ground for Palestinian security forces.

But Abbas had rejected the offer, saying he first needed to work out a deal with militant groups that have rejected the road map to halt attacks on Israelis.

After three days in which Israel killed six Hamas men using helicopter-fired guided missiles -- also causing at least 16 civilian deaths -- the Palestinians said they were ready to assume security control if Israel stopped its hits on militants.

"We are ready to take over the territories from which the Israelis withdraw," Information Minister Nabil Amr said earlier.

But Israel, seething from Wednesday's Hamas bombing aboard a Jerusalem bus which killed 17, showed no sign of backing down.

"As a government responsible for the security of its citizens, we must wage a war to the bitter end (against Hamas) because no one else, at least at this stage, will do it," Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim told Israeli Army Radio.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell was due to meet other members of the so-called "Quartet" of mediators -- the United Nations, European Union and Russia -- in Jordan on June 22.

- RUETERS