WEST BANK/GAZA/JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meet for talks in Jerusalem

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meet for talks in Jerusalem, as the death toll from an Israeli raid into Gaza rises to six. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday (October 26) in a new effort to narrow differences on making peace before a U.S.-hosted conference due later this year. As Abbas arrived at Olmert's Jerusalem residence, Israeli forces were engaged in some of the fiercest clashes in weeks in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian Islamists opposed to Abbas seized control in June, complicating his quest for statehood. A senior aide to Abbas condemned an Israeli plan to start cutting power supplies to Gaza, and its 1.5 million inhabitants, in response to rockets fired by militants from the enclave into Israel. Saeb Erekat called on the international community to "intervene immediately to protect the Palestinian people and compel Israel to comply with international humanitarian law". Hamas leader and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called for an end to meetings between Abbas and Olmert saying they talked of collective punishment while the killings and incursions continued. Abbas and Olmert were meeting over lunch as they seek common ground before a conference in the United States aimed at agreeing on steps toward establishing a Palestinian state. While profoundly hostile to Hamas, Abbas's secular Fatah faction and the Palestinian Authority it controls in the West Bank have spoken out against Israeli action in Gaza, where troops killed six militants in raids on Friday.

ITN Source | October 26, 2007

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