MIDDLE EAST: Statehood questions for Gaza as Palestinian leadership talks with Israel

Residents of the isolated Gaza Strip voiced scepticism on Tuesday (August 28) that a meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders will benefit them. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were scheduled to hold talks in Jerusalem on Tuesday, the latest in a series of meetings to warm relations since Abbas's Islamist rivals seized the Gaza Strip. "Our expectations are the same as previous summits, which did not bring any tangible results," said Galeb Shamal, a Gaza resident. "As usual their meeting is just going to pass by. Its like a cloud in the sky passing by. There is no hope for any meeting with the occupation," Khalil al-Ras, a fruit vender at a Gaza market said. The meeting will take place at the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem and is part of a series of discussions leading up to a U.S.-sponsored Middle East conference expected to be held in November to try to revive peacemaking now that Abbas has dismissed a Hamas-led government elected last year. Abbas formed a new administration in the larger, Israeli-occupied West Bank after the Islamists routed Abbas's secular Fatah forces in Gaza in June. Hamas which has been shunned by the West and now by Abbas' Fatah, denounced the meeting. Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said it would result in "complete failure". Speaking on Palestinian television on Monday (August 27), Abbas voiced concern that much has yet to be agreed -- notably the timing, participants and agenda -- before a November conference, which U.S. President George W. Bush offered as a way to kick-start talks on establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza after seven years of angry stand-off. Abbas said the conference would be a "waste of time" if it stuck to a "declaration of principles" -- a phrase used by some Israeli officials to describe what they may offer in answer to demands for the rapid, final negotiation of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, Palestinian militants fired a makeshift rocket at the southern Israeli town of Sderot just hours before the meeting. The rocket hit a house in a populated neighbourhood and lightly injured one person, according to Israeli rescue forces. Residents expressed hopes that the leaders' meeting will lead to an end to rocket fire.

ITN Source | August 28, 2007

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