| Submit your comments on this article |
| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Abbas to meet Israeli PM as Gaza violence persists |
| 2007-05-30 |
| Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that he will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert next week for the first time in nearly two months as the army continued hammering Hamas targets in violence-wracked Gaza. "Our meetings with the Israelis must continue, and in this regard I will have a new meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert June 7," Abbas said at a news conference with visiting EU parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering in Gaza City. A statement from Olmert's office said that a meeting was planned for next week, with the date and location yet to be determined. News of the encounter comes amid weeks of escalating violence in the Gaza Strip that has threatened to torpedo international efforts to revive the moribund peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Abbas and Olmert agreed in March to meet every two weeks, but their talks have been scuppered by internal crises in both Israel and the Palestinian territories and by a resumption of deadly Israeli air raids to stop increasing rocket fire from Gaza. The two leaders last met April 15. Abbas warned against Israel launching a wide-scale ground operation in Gaza, amid increasing calls for such a move in Israeli political circles, and reiterated his call for a truce between militants and the army. He has urged Palestinian militants in Gaza to stop "futile" rocket attacks in order to reach a truce with Israel both in the coastal strip and in the occupied West Bank. The prospect of a renewed truce between Israel and Gaza militants has looked dim in recent weeks, as both the Jewish state and Hamas have demanded that the other side stop firing first. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #2 What they really need is a ceasefire. |
| Posted by: Grusosh Borgia9229 2007-05-30 12:13 |
| #1 Shh! It's a secret meeting! |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-05-30 03:25 |