President Hosni Mubarak, Abu Mazen discuss recent Palestinian developments

President Abbas: Legislative elections to be held in West Bank, Gaza Strip together

Palestinians urge Obama to take firm stand over Israeli intransigence

Netanyahu claims he convinced U.S. administration of backtracking on calls to freeze settlement building

Lebanon complains to UNSC over Israel’s recent assaults on southern areas

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was in Egypt on Tuesday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak after a reconciliation meeting with the Islamist Hamas movement was put on hold.

"Fatah completely supported the Egyptian proposal... but then Hamas put down obstacles to achieving a reconciliation," Abbas told reporters in Cairo, in the latest salvo in a war of words with Gaza's rulers.

Egypt has been struggling for months to broker a reconciliation agreement between the two main Palestinian factions.

Fatah has signed a draft accord drawn up by Egypt but Hamas has repeatedly postponed its official response, saying that it needs more time to consider the deal.

"We don't want to say that we have completely stopped moving forward on the reconciliation issue. What we are concerned about is the unity of our people," Abbas said.

He again warned that agreement needs to be reached by Sunday in order for him to set a date for parliamentary and presidential elections in accordance with Palestinian law.

The elections would normally fall due by January 25 but the Egyptian draft proposes holding the elections on June 28 and would require Abbas to issue a decree before the weekend to override that procedure.

"We are forced, according to the constitution, to announce before October 25 the date of elections so that elections are held before next January 25," Abbas said.

He issued a similar warning last week, saying that if Hamas did not agree to the Egyptian plan in time, he would call elections for January 24.

In the last parliamentary elections in 2006, Hamas won an upset victory over Fatah.

Relations between the two factions deteriorated sharply in the aftermath and in summer 2007 Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza leaving the Palestinian territories effectively divided between rival administrations.

Reconciliation between the two is seen as vital to any resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Obama administration pressed Israel and the Palestinians on Thursday to do more to help re-launch long-stalled peace talks after the latest flurry of U.S. diplomacy failed to yield any sign of a breakthrough.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed President Barack Obama a less-than-glowing assessment of Middle East peace efforts amid skepticism inside and outside of the region about the prospects for unblocking the peace process.

Clinton's status report followed separate meetings in Washington in recent days between Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Israeli and Palestinian negotiators aimed at narrowing the gap and restarting direct negotiations suspended since December.

"The secretary advised the president that challenges remain as the United States continues to work with both sides," a senior administration official said after Clinton briefed Obama. "Both sides need to move forward toward direct negotiations."

Obama set Middle East peace as a top priority at the start of his presidency in January, in contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush, who was criticized internationally for neglecting the long-running conflict. But so far the new administration has little to show for its efforts.

The White House insisted progress had been made on some issues but again urged Israel to take tangible steps to stop building Jewish settlements and pushed the Palestinians to do more to meet their obligations.

"The Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security and reforming Palestinian institutions, but they need to do more in these areas and on stopping incitement and preventing terror," the administration official said.

"Israelis have facilitated greater movement for Palestinians and responded to our call to stop all settlement activity by expressing a willingness to curtail settlement activity," the official said. "But they need to translate that willingness into real, meaningful action and do more to improve the daily lives of Palestinians."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose right-leaning coalition includes pro-settler parties, has resisted Obama's calls for a total freeze on settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, politically weak because he governs only in the West Bank while Hamas Islamists control the Gaza Strip, has said he will not resume direct talks until a complete settlement freeze is implemented.

Obama is sending Mitchell back to the region for a fresh attempt at restarting peace talks, and Clinton will consult with Arab foreign ministers on the subject in Morocco on November 2-3, the administration official said.

Mitchell's previous rounds of shuttle diplomacy have failed to break the deadlock.

Obama's own direct engagement has also yielded scant movement. He managed to broker little more than an awkward handshake between Netanyahu and Abbas in New York last month. He then ordered aides to keep up diplomatic efforts and for Clinton to report back to him, as she did on Thursday.

Though the White House did little to raise expectations of a breakthrough, Israeli officials said progress had been with Mitchell on Israel's terms for restarting talks.

There was no sign, however, that Abbas was ready to drop his demand for a settlement freeze as a condition for resuming negotiations. Netanyahu has insisted he is ready for talks but that he will accept no preconditions.

Abbas said on Monday night that he doesn't know about any deal reached between Israel and the U.S. over freezing or halting settlement activities in the West Bank.

"The Palestinian leadership hasn't heard of such a deal," said Abbas in a joint news conference with visiting European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, following a meeting between the two in Ramallah.

"So far we haven't received any information from the U.S. administration over what has been reported earlier in Israeli media that a deal was reached with Israel over the issue of settlements," said Abbas.

"We usually don't believe what is published in the media, but we wait for the official U.S. response to the issue," said Abbas, who still insisted that no talks with Israel, unless the latter stops or freezes the settlement activities.

The Israeli media reported earlier Monday that hawkish Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu has reached a compromise with the U.S. administration on the issue of settlement for the renewal of peace talks.

"The main basis for the renewal of peace talks is the full cessation of settlement activities, finding a clear reference to the peace process and implementing the international resolutions related to resolving the conflict," said Abbas.

Meanwhile, Abbas said that he will head to Egypt on Tuesday to hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak over the inter-reconciliation and ending the current feuds with Hamas movement.

Solana arrived earlier in the region, where he will hold talks with Israeli and Arab leaders over pushing ahead the stalled Middle East peace process.

Solana told reporters that he came to the region "to exchange ideas with different leaders over pushing forward the peace process and resuming the peace negotiations."

A U.N. investigation into explosions in south Lebanon indicated on Sunday that Israel had planted spy devices on Lebanese land in what a senior U.N. official said would be a violation of a ceasefire agreement.

The UNIFIL peacekeeping force in Lebanon said its preliminary probe into two explosions in the south showed they had been caused by the detonation of underground sensor devices.

The units were apparently buried by Israeli forces during the 2006 war with the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, it said. "These do look like some sort of espionage device," Michael Williams, the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, told Reuters.

If confirmed, the devices would represent violations of Security Council resolution 1701 which halted the 34-day war. A first explosion was reported on Saturday evening and a second on Sunday morning. No injuries were reported. The devices had been placed some 2 km inside Lebanese territory between the villages of Houla and Meiss al-Jabal.

"Preliminary indications are that these explosions were caused by explosive charges contained in unattended underground sensors which were placed in this area by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) apparently during the 2006 war," UNIFIL said in a statement.

UNIFIL was investigating what had caused the devices to blow up. A Lebanese security official said they appeared to have been detonated by remote control from Israel after their discovery by Lebanese security forces.

Israel did not respond specifically to the Lebanese assertion. But an Israeli military statement said Sunday's incident proved Hezbollah's military presence in south Lebanon, especially in rural Shiite areas along the border with Israel.

UNIFIL said it had protested to the Israeli military about overflights by drones while the Lebanese army and the peacekeepers were investigating on the ground. Lebanese army troops opened fire on the drones with machine gun and small arms fire, the UNIFIL statement said.

Williams said the use of drones was an obvious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and resolution 1701 "and not particularly helpful at a time of obvious tension in the south."

UNIFIL is also investigating another incident in south Lebanon last week at the village of Tayr Filsi, a UNIFIL spokesman said. The Lebanese army and Hezbollah said one person was wounded when a shell exploded in the garage of a Hezbollah member in the village on Monday.

Israel has said the blast showed munitions were being stockpiled in violation of resolution 1701 and has complained to the United Nations about the incident.

The next report on Security Council resolution 1701 is due to be filed later this month.

The 2006 war broke out after Hezbollah, an anti-Israeli Shiite group backed by Iran, launched a raid into Israel, capturing two soldiers. More than 1,000 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, were killed before the United Nations brokered a ceasefire.