Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met top Israeli officials on Sunday in the highest-level contact between the two sides since the shock election win of the Islamist movement Hamas. The encounter, on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, came amid deadly Israeli raids on the Palestinian territories and a surge in violence between rival Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip. Israel officials at the talks vowed they would act to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories, in the grip of massive financial problems after Israel and the West cut aid to the Hamas-led government."It is the Israeli government policy not to punish the Palestinian people for their vote and to help the Palestinian people in any economic and humanitarian way that we could," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said after the talks. "Israel is not against the Palestinian people and will do all it can to prevent a humanitarian crisis," added Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was also at the meeting. "We want to ensure that there is aid to the people and not to the terrorists."