Palestinian president to meet Israeli leader

MIDDLE EAST: The Palestinian and Israeli leaders agreed yesterday to meet for the first time in two months after the violent…

MIDDLE EAST:The Palestinian and Israeli leaders agreed yesterday to meet for the first time in two months after the violent Islamist takeover of the Gaza Strip prompted each side to adopt a common approach to the enclave.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president, will meet Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday, officials said.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah will meet Mr Abbas there on Sunday before the four-way summit.

Before the meeting, Israel's cabinet is expected to agree on Sunday to release hundreds of millions of dollars of Palestinian tax revenues, collected by Israeli officials and withheld for the past 15 months since the Islamist Hamas movement formed a Palestinian government after winning a parliamentary election.

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In his turn, Mr Abbas is issuing orders to disband militia groups - both from Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is nominally loyal to his own, secular Fatah faction.

Along with the US and EU, Israel refused to deal with Hamas on the grounds that it refused to renounce violence or formally recognise Israel's right to exist.

Complex Western efforts to bolster Mr Abbas, leader of the long dominant Fatah faction, while continuing to shun Hamas have, since the Islamists seized control in Gaza last week, been replaced with a simple lifting of sanctions on the larger, Fatah-run West Bank, where Mr Abbas rules from Ramallah.

Israel, which withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, is letting nothing but essential humanitarian supplies through its tight security cordon around the coastal enclave.

Mr Abbas, in an unusually emotional speech on Wednesday to leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, ruled out any dialogue with Hamas, saying he felt personally outraged by its takeover in Gaza and accused it of trying to kill him.

The schism between the West Bank and Gaza, after six days of fighting that killed more than 100 people, has left Palestinians' hopes for a state in both territories in grave jeopardy.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Mr Abbas, said he hoped the summit would lay a cornerstone for starting negotiations that would lead to an agreement to achieve Palestinian statehood.

Washington implemented a pledge to remove an aid embargo against the Palestinians and published a licence yesterday permitting transactions with Mr Abbas's new government. - (Reuters)