Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, are to hold their first summit this week in Egypt, the highest-level talks between the two sides for more than four years.
They had already agreed to meet and on Wednesday Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak offered to host the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on February 8.
There is growing international pressure to secure a comprehensive ceasefire by Palestinian armed groups and an Israeli commitment to curtail its attacks.
Mubarak’s office said he had made the offer in the light of the delicacy of the present stage of the peace process, and ”in an endeavour to seize the auspicious opportunity to achieve tangible progress on the Palestinian track”.
King Abdullah of Jordan will be present.
Israeli Television said the United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who is expected in Jerusalem on Sunday, was considering attending, but the US State Department said the report was ”premature”.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said his authority wanted the summit to secure Israeli commitments that would help establish a comprehensive ceasefire and end more than four years of intifada.
Abbas has won the commitment of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to end their war on Israel and switch to political tactics if Israel agrees to halt its attacks on the occupied territories, end assassinations and other killings, and abandon its pursuit of wanted Palestinian fighters.
Israel has responded by promising to meet ”quiet with quiet”, and has taken steps to reduce raids and killings in Palestinian areas. It said it would free some prisoners and hand over responsibility for security in five West Bank towns.
But it has been unwilling to commit itself publicly to a mutual ceasefire with groups it regards as terrorist organisations.
The fatal shooting of a 10-year-old girl in southern Gaza on Monday increased the tension.
Hamas blamed the Israeli army, fired mortars into Jewish settlements and threatened to abandon the truce called to let Abbas try to get a deal with Israel.
On Wednesday an Israeli Defence Ministry official, Amos Gilad, said the two sides had agreed to establish a panel to review Israel’s list of wanted Palestinian fighters and to remove the names of those who committed themselves to ending attacks.
”We have to include all the fugitives who stop being active,” he said. ”There is an opportunity here.”
Mubarak’s invitation was issued at a hastily arranged meeting on Wednesday between Sharon and the Egyptian Intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who held talks with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Cairo on Tuesday.
His sudden trip to Jerusalem is thought to have been prompted by new promises made then.
Abbas has accepted an invitation to visit Iran, which backs hardline militants. No date has been set for the visit.
Meanwhile, Israel’s attorney general has ordered the government to cancel a secret decision to confiscate thousands of hectares of Arab-owned land in and around Jerusalem from Palestinians separated from their property by the West Bank barrier.
Menachem Mazuz said he was not consulted when Sharon’s Cabinet made the decision last July, and that seizing the land violated international law on occupied territories and would damage Israel’s diplomatic standing.
But hundreds of Palestinian families will only regain access to their land if the army lets them pass through the barrier. — Â