Abbas warns of 'difficult impasse' in peace talks

Israel continues massacres against Palestinian civilians

Turkish mediation between Syrian president, Israeli PM

Israel must control Golan Heights even at times of peace – Israeli right wing

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas warned of an "extremely difficult impasse" if a peace deal is not reached with Israel before US President George W. Bush leaves office in January.

"If President Bush's term ends without an accord we will find ourselves at an extremely difficult impasse, and we Palestinians will have to look at what measures we can take if that is the case," Abbas told AFP on board his flight back to the Middle East which made a stopover in Scotland.

Abbas was in the White House to meet Bush who is pushing for a peace deal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before the end of his term early next year.

The Palestinian leader said that Bush "clearly realizes that time is short, but he remains hopeful of being able to achieve something."

Bush said after meeting Abbas that a Palestinian state was "a high priority, for me and my administration -- a viable state, a state that doesn't look like Swiss cheese, a state that provides hope."

Abbas has called on the United States to use its influence to implement the so-called "roadmap" for Middle East peace and "achieve Bush's vision of two states" -- an independent Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.

In their talks, Abbas said he and the American president clearly stated their positions, and he applauded the Bush administration's active diplomacy to reach an accord by the start of next year.

At the same time, Abbas admitted there was still a "wide gap" between the Palestinian and Israeli positions on key issues.

"All the issues under discussion are difficult," he said.

"We told President Bush that there are three main obstacles -- continuing to expand Jewish settlements and maintain roadblocks in the occupied West Bank, and the question of borders which we insist must be based on the 1967 borders."

Israel occupied the West Bank and captured Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war, and later annexed it.

Abbas added, however, that he did not rule out "slight modifications" to the borders in order to reach a peace agreement with the Jewish state.

The Palestinian leader will again meet Bush on May 17 in Egypt when the US president visits the region to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of modern Israel.

Abbas said he did not know if other Middle East leaders would also attend the meeting. "It is up to Egypt, the host country, to decide," he added.

While in Washington Abbas said he also raised the idea of holding a new peace conference in Moscow.

"The Americans are discussing the idea with the Russians to come up with an agenda and a date," he said.

Russia is a member of the Middle East diplomatic quartet, along with the European Union, the United Nations and the United States. A ministerial meeting of the four is to take place on May 1-2 in London.

The last Middle East conference was sponsored by the United States in Annapolis last November, when negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis were revived after a seven-year freeze in the peace process.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he reviewed with Egyptian President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak the outcome of his tour which included both Russia and the United States of America.

President told reporters after meeting with President Mubarak at Sharm el-Sheikh that his talks dealt with the subject of calm and the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, stressing the importance of the Egyptian role in this field.

'We are still negotiating on the issues of the six final issues of the peace process.'

President Abbas expressed the Palestinian National Authority's (PNA) full support for the Egyptian role and efforts of the Minister Omar Suleiman regarding calm, pointing out that the calm is a Palestinian interest as it alleviates the suffering of our people and contributes in opening the crossings.

President also stressed that the (PNA) supports without any reservations or conditions and the determined efforts exerted by Egypt to achieve this calm in Gaza.

The Palestinian President made it clear that he asked the American side during his recent visit to playing more effectively to achieve the desired political settlement.

Meanwhile, Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal said his movement is awaiting an official Israeli response to a truce offer in the Gaza Strip, even though Israel has already poured cold water on it.

Meanwhile in Egypt, where the government has been attempting to mediate a ceasefire, an official said various Palestinian factions are actually still formulating a common position on a proposal for an eventual deal.

Meshaal, speaking to reporters in the Qatari capital, Doha, said Hamas "has requested from the Egyptian delegation a paper with the pledges that the Israeli occupation agrees upon in order to calm the situation.

"Based on this paper, Hamas will decide whether to accept or refuse the easing of the situation that Egypt is trying to achieve between the Palestinians and the Israelis."

The Hamas supremo insisted that the truce offer was an Egyptian product and that Hamas agreed to go along with it only if Israel answered certain demands.

Hamas "did not initiate the offer to calm the situation," he said. But Zaki said that and Wednesday, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman will host Palestinian factions to discuss the truce proposal, though Zaki said "no dramatic developments are expected at these meetings. In order for Egypt's mediation efforts to succeed, he said all parties "must show proof of cooperation and express a sincere desire to reach a ceasefire." On Thursday, senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar had said in Cairo that the Islamist movement had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza first, which could be extended to the West Bank within six months.

Zahar, speaking after talks with Suleiman, said the move must be "reciprocal, simultaneous and comprehensive" and that Israel must end its crippling blockade of the impoverished territory.

An official close to Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested the two sides could still reach some form of tacit truce if militants first halt their rocket fire.

Egypt has been serving as a go-between in the truce negotiations as Israel considers Hamas a terror group and refuses any direct contacts.

Zaki said "the next phase is one of formulating a common Palestinian position regarding the truce, with the aim of presenting it to Israel and waiting for Israel's response to the Palestinian proposal.

He said one presented by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit stipulates a ceasefire, the opening of the border crossings, a lifting of the blockade and finally the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The plan "does not say the elements are simultaneous," Zaki said. The spokesman also said he did not consider an apparent rejection by Israel's government spokesman of the Hamas proposal definitive.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev scoffed at the Hamas proposal for a six-month truce in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip "Unfortunately, this appears not to be serious at all," he said.

Meshaal said that among the pledges that Hamas expects is the "opening of the Rafah crossing point (with Egypt) and others" to ease the crippling blockade facing the Gaza Strip.

Zahar had said that if Israel rejects a truce, Egypt would open its border with Gaza. Egypt has not commented on that assertion.

The Rafah crossing has been mainly closed since Hamas seized control of the territory from forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas last June.

Egypt has sent recently reinforcements to Rafah in a bid to prevent a repeat of mass border breaches in January, when hundreds of thousands of Gazans flooded into Egypt to stock up on vital supplies.

Israel allows only limited humanitarian aid into Gaza as part of a blockade aimed at forcing militants to stop rocket attacks.

Humanitarian organizations say the embargo has left Gaza teetering on the brink of disaster.

On Thursday, UNRWA halted food distribution to 650,000 people there, saying it no longer had any petrol for its aid trucks.

In Cairo, Egypt's mediating efforts are focusing only on initiating a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas, media reports cited Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki as saying. Speaking to the Voice of Palestine radio station, Zaki also said Egypt was not officially obliged to open its crossing border with the Gaza Strip if the truce failed.

The spokesman spoke in reaction to statements by a senior Hamas leader and participant in negotiations Mahmoud al-Zahar saying that Egypt was obliged to reopen the Rafah crossing border if the truce failed.

Zaki said that only Egyptian officials could announce the country's mediating actions; statements to the media from other sides regarding the issue were incorrect.

The truce offer comes as part of a comprehensive proposal aimed at stopping military clashes between of Hamas and Israel, lifting the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and restoring the normal roles of the borders, the spokesman said.

He explained that Hamas was a part of the "Palestinian equation" and had actual control over the Gaza Strip, which logically drove Egypt to deal with the movement in an attempt to alleviate the sufferings of Gazans.

The Hamas Movement strongly denounced the American congress for passing a resolution stipulating that Palestine is a homeland for Jews, considering it a very grave racist decision.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, underlined that the Movement would keep resisting such projects which aim to write off the right of return, liquidate the Palestinian cause and sanction new dislodgement of the Palestinians inside the green line (Palestinian lands occupied in 1948).

Barhoum opined that this resolution proved that US president George Bush's positions and delusional promises during recent meetings with PA chief Mahmoud Abbas were elusive and disingenuous aiming to gain more time for the benefit of the Israeli occupation.

The spokesman added that this resolution also bears out that the Zionist lobby fully controls the US political institutions and its foreign policies to the exclusion of the American public opinion and at the expense of the Palestinian people's right to sovereignty over their land.

The spokesman underscored in this regard that the wagering on American institutions under the control of the Zionist lobby is a losing bet, calling on the Arab and Islamic countries, and the PA leadership to adopt a unified and strong position in rejection of the American support for the "Israeli terrorism".

The spokesman also called for forming an Arab and Islamic axis supporting the Palestinian people's right to sovereignty over their land and protecting their rights and constants against the Zio-American schemes which became the greatest threat to the entire region.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak cast doubt on the prospects of a truce in the Gaza Strip, saying Israel was locked in a showdown with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

Asked if a truce was in the works, he said: "At this time we are engaged in a confrontation with Hamas, which is a better description of the current situation than to talk about a possible 'hudna'," using the Arabic for truce. "Hamas is responsible for violence and some attacks endangering the lives of civilians. It is clear that we do not like to see the deaths of civilians," Barak said in a statement issued by his ministry.

"The Israeli army takes action and will continue to take action against all Gaza terrorists," he added.

The Israeli defense chief was alluding in part to the killing of four Palestinian children and their mother during an Israeli army operation in northern Gaza.

According to Palestinian medical sources, the woman and her small children died after an Israeli missile hit their home.

However, the Israeli army said the explosion took place after an air strike hit two gunmen carrying sacks of explosives towards a battle between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants nearby.

Palestinian witnesses denied that account, insisting the clashes took place over a kilometer away and that no militants were killed or wounded in the house explosion.

Israel's military has ordered a further inquiry into the incident. Barak's doubts about a truce came as representatives from several Palestinian factions were set to meet with Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who is trying to mediate a truce in and around the Gaza Strip.

Hamas last week told the Egyptians it would be ready to accept a truce first in the Gaza Strip, to be followed six months later in the West Bank.

Israel has expressed doubts about Hamas's intentions but said it would consider a truce if Hamas stopped firing rockets at Israeli territory and attacking border positions.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops rolled into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, sparking heavy fighting with local militants and killing at least seven Palestinians, most of them when a tank shell hit a house, medical officials said.

A mother and her four children - aged seven, six, four and a one- year-old baby - were killed when the tank shell hit the house, an official at the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Witnesses said the shell was aimed at an Islamic Jihad militant, who had just launched an anti-tank missile at the Israel troops and was killed too.

The mother of the Abu Mo'tiq family was initially critically injured and in a state of clinical death, but died of her wounds in hospital shortly afterwards. A Hamas gunman was also killed by a missile fired by an Israeli helicopter gunship providing cover for the ground troops.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army entered the town, near Gaza's northern border with Israel, because it was a 'very central rocket launching area.'

Hundreds of locally-made Qassam, al-Quds and Nasser rockets have been fired from Beit Hanoun and its surroundings at Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip.

Militants from the area also launched attacks at Israeli soldiers patrolling the border, and snipers have opened fire at Israeli farmers working on the Israeli side of the border fence, she said.

The military said it was checking the reports that civilians were killed in the tank shelling.

But the spokeswoman said that 'when militants are acting from within a populated area, they take on themselves the risk that civilians will be hurt too. We of course do not aim at civilians.'

For his part, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the new Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, which claimed the death of seven citizens, including a mother and her four sons.

President added that such Israeli attack could not serve the exerted efforts to achieve calm and also impede the peace process, stressing that it is necessary to reach calm to avoid our people the dangers of war and destruction.

Toppled Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said the "massacre" was part of Israel's "constant attempts to destroy any regional or international effort to lift the siege and end the violence."

Palestinian militants meanwhile fired at least 13 rockets at southern Israel, damaging a house in the hard-hit town of Sderot near the border, the army said. No one was wounded in the attack.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement questioned Israel's seriousness regarding a ceasefire deal that Egypt seeks to broker.

The Israeli policies of "killing and destruction discard all the calmness initiatives as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks about the Palestinians' intention to stick to a comprehensive, mutual and simultaneous calmness," Fatah said in a statement sent to the media.

Egypt has been leading efforts to broker a ceasefire deal between armed Palestinian groups, led by Hamas, and Israel. Hamas has decided on the ceasefire and awaits Israeli responses to its vision.

Meanwhile, Fatah referred to the numerous meetings that President Abbas held with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, praising the Egyptian role which supports the Palestinian people and Egypt's efforts to lift the siege on the Palestinian people.

The statement also called on the American administration, the Quartet, the UN and the Security Council to intervene and stop the Israeli aggressions on the Palestinian people and to stop the double-standard policy in dealing with the Palestinian cause.

The World Bank predicted that persistent Israeli restrictions on economic life in the Palestinian territories will lead to sluggish growth this year despite nearly 7.7 billion dollars in foreign aid.

A report by the bank on the implementation of reforms in the Palestinian economy painted a bleak picture particularly for the besieged Hamas-run Gaza Strip, where Israel maintains a crippling blockade.

"The private sector revival required for a virtuous cycle of growth has not been realized due to continued restrictions on movement and access," the report said.

It found no GDP growth in 2007 and estimated only three percent growth in 2008, which because of population growth "leaves per capita incomes static if not lower than the previous year."

At a Paris donor conference in December, 84 states together pledged 7.7 billion dollars to support a two-year economic reform program designed by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a former World Bank economist.

The plan has "achieved some important milestones" but remains hampered by the hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks scattered across the occupied West Bank, the report said.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said his country supports taking steps to improve daily life in the West Bank but said the roadblocks were necessary to prevent Palestinian attacks inside Israel.

"We might get a nice headline in the newspaper on day one, but on day two we could get a new series of suicide bombings" that could undermine the peace process, he told AFP.

At the end of March Israel pledged to remove some 50 of the nearly 600 roadblocks across the West Bank, but a UN agency that monitors roadblocks said most of the barriers that were removed were of little or no significance.

The report put unemployment in the occupied West Bank at 23 percent, and as high as 33 percent in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a punishing Israeli embargo since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in June.

The Gaza unemployment rate "is likely to become much higher as the layoffs in the industrial sector become permanent," the report said, adding that more than 35 percent of the Strip's 1.5 million residents live in "deep poverty."

Deep poverty is defined by the World Bank as a budget of some 500 dollars a month for a family of six.

Gaza's industrial sector, which once generated more than 50 percent of the territory's jobs, has been decimated by the sanctions, leading to the suspension of 96 percent of industrial operations, the report said.

When Hamas seized power in June 2007, "about 6,500 (people) worked in the furniture sector, and 25,000 in the garment sector. As of January 2008, these numbers dropped to 75 and zero, respectively" it said.

Israel has blamed Gaza's economic woes on the Islamist movement, which is pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state and has launched several attacks against Gaza border crossings in recent weeks.

In recent months Israel has sought to isolate and undermine the Hamas-run government in Gaza while bolstering moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank through revived peace talks held under US auspices.

But the talks have made little visible progress since they were re-launched in November.

Turkey's prime minister flew to Damascus and said he was trying to restart direct talks between Syria and Israel, stepping up his nation's behind-the-scenes efforts to negotiate a peace deal between the longtime enemies. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spent five hours in Syria meeting with President Bashar Assad and discussing Turkish efforts to mediate a deal.

"There was a request from Syria and Israel for this kind of an effort and Turkey will do its best in this regard," Erdogan said on his return to Turkey. "This effort will start among the lower level (officials) and if they are successful, God willing, they will end with a higher level meeting."

Erdogan did not mention statements by Syrian officials and media in the past week saying that he recently gave Syrian officials a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert indicating Israel was willing to give up the Golan Heights in return for a peace treaty. Olmert said this month that he sent messages to Damascus on peace prospects, though he would not disclose details.

Israel had no immediate comment. But the developments suggest some progress in back-channel contacts between Syria and Israel, despite heightened tensions over Lebanon and an Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in September.

Assad said in a statement carried by Syria's official news agency that his meeting with Erdogan "focused on means to activate the process of just and comprehensive peace." He praised the Turkish initiative and said Syria would cooperate "in whatever brings security and stability to the region."

Israel and Syria's last round of direct talks broke down in 2000 over the details of Israel's proposed withdrawal from the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau which it seized in the 1967 Mideast War. Israel wanted to keep a small coastal strip around the Sea of Galilee to ensure its control of the lake's vital water supplies but Syria rejected the demand.

Assad said in an interview with the Qatari newspaper al-Watan that Turkish mediation could lay the groundwork for direct talks with Israel. Assad said talks would continue indirectly with Turkey as a go-between. Future talks needed to be brokered by the United States under a new administration, he said.

Asked in the interview whether people in the Middle East should expect a solution in the near future, Assad said: "No, don't because of the second party (Israel). I cannot guarantee that."

Turkey has close ties with both Israel and Syria as well as with the United States.

Israel's ambassador in Ankara raised the possibility of renewing long frozen peace negotiations with Syria under Turkish mediation, Agence France – Presse reported. "The first step could be handled through low-level officials and, if it works and if there are results, one can expect that it will continue at a much higher level," Gaby Levy told public radio from the Turkish capital. He added, however, that he could "not give any details on the process."

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said he plans to send an emissary to Jerusalem to brief Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on his recent talks with Assad in Damascus. Israeli officials believe Turkey's involvement in the issue will increase. "Erdogan has decided to go all the way on the issue of Israel and Syria," the Israeli government source told Haaretz.

Israel must control the Golan Heights even at times of peace, Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu said, while blasting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for purportedly being ready to cede the plateau even before negotiations with Syria.

"The Golan Heights must remain in our hands at times of peace as well, otherwise Iran will get there," the chairman of the Likud Party was quoted by local daily Yedioth Ahronoth as saying, adding that it is "very surprising" that Olmert is willing to give up the highland even before the start of negotiations, whom he dismissed as "acting recklessly and like an amateur." In response to Netanyahu's remarks, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement that Netanyahu is "the one who sent a businessman to (Syrian President Bashar) Assad to cede the Golan Heights on Israel's behalf, even before launching negotiations."

"The prime minister will persist in his efforts to reach peace and will do it in a sound and responsible manner, while taking the steps which will guarantee Israel's security," said the statement.

The exchange of rebukes came on the same day when Qatari newspaper Al Watan reported that Syria was demanding a commitment in writing from Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights Israel captured during the 1967 Six Day War, quoting Assad as saying the time has not yet come for peace because "the Israeli side has still not given its guarantee."

Assad has said that Israel passed a message to Syria that the Jewish state is willing to withdraw from the highland in return for peace, while Olmert's office has yet to make official comment on the remarks.

Meanwhile, a senior Israeli official said that peace with Syria is "in Israel's interests" if Damascus breaks away from "the axis of evil," according to Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.