GAZA/ISRAEL: Hamas spokesman dismisses the summit of Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as futile

Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said the summit of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Saturday (December 23) would not bring any change to Israeli policies in Palestinian territories. "Many meetings were held between the Palestinian leaders and the Israeli leaders but the situation was moving in the same cycle and Israel continue their aggression and building settlements and building the wall," Hamad said in Gaza City. The meeting was a first step toward reviving long-stalled peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Peace talks collapsed in 2000 just before the start of a Palestinian uprising and appeared all but dead when the Hamas Islamists took power in Gaza and the West Bank in March. The meeting at the Israeli leader's residence in Jerusalem was the first formal talks between the two since Olmert replaced Ariel Sharon as prime minister in January when Sharon suffered a massive stroke. Television pictures showed Olmert and Abbas, both smiling, exchanging handshakes and kisses on the cheek before they sat down at a long table. Israel has been under pressure from the United States and the European Union to take steps to support Abbas since he called for early Palestinian elections, a move that Hamas has rejected as a "coup" and unconstitutional. The two men were not expected to hold a news conference at the end of their meeting but to release a statement instead, officials said. Officials had worked for months to prepare a meeting to move the moribund peace process forward but news of the gathering was announced only hours before the leaders met. Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisen said the issues on the table are the continuation of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority's (Hamas-led) government and the issue of Gilad Shalit. Palestinian militants from Gaza abducted Shalit, an Israeli soldier, in a cross-border raid in June. His kidnapping prompted Israel to launch a months-long offensive in Gaza that largely ended with a shaky truce in late November. Abbas and Olmert met informally on the sidelines of a conference in Jordan earlier this year. Abbas's last formal meeting with an Israeli prime minister was in February 2005 when Sharon was leader. The Palestinian leader's decision to call elections ratcheted up tension in Gaza and the occupied West Bank between forces loyal to Hamas and Abbas's Fatah. At least 10 people have been killed in internal fighting in the last week.

ITN Source | December 24, 2006

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