Fresh setback as Israel-Palestinian summit cancelled

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders today called off a planned summit this week, dealing a new setback to efforts to halt nearly a month of fighting between the Israeli army and militants in the Gaza Strip and restart peacemaking.

Palestinian foreign minister Ziad Abu Amr said the so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators had invited Palestinian president Mahmoud and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert to a meeting in Egypt on June 25. An official in Olmert’s office, David Baker, said no invitation had been received.

Olmert and Abbas had been expected to sit down together tomorrow in the West Bank town of Jericho, in what would have been their first talks on Palestinian territory. Baker said the meeting was postponed at the request of the Palestinians.

“Prime Minister Olmert will be ready to meet with Abu Mazen at any time,” Baker said, using Abbas’ nickname.

Palestinian officials said Israel has rejected demands to release hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Palestinian tax revenues, restart peace talks or accept Abbas’ proposal for restoring a collapsed ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and extending it to the West Bank.

“Israel is not responding positively to these demands so the president decided not to go to this meeting,” Abu Amr told a news conference in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Shortly after, he announced that Olmert and Abbas had been invited to Cairo by the Quartet – the US, European Union, UN and Russia.

Abu Amr said the meeting was important because it signalled stepped-up international involvement.

“If the Quartet meeting does not come with concrete results, it is going to undermine the credibility of the Quartet,” he said.

After encouragement from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Olmert and Abbas agreed in March to meet every two weeks with the aim of moving beyond day-to-day issues and discussing the outlines of a permanent peace deal.

However, the men have met only once since then, and any chances of reviving peace talks have been clouded by the resumption of fighting in Gaza.

A five-month truce collapsed last month when Hamas militants began firing barrages of crude rockets into southern Israel.

The Israeli army has responded with dozens of airstrikes and several brief ground incursions aimed at halting the rocket fire. More than 60 Palestinians, most of them militants, and two Israeli civilians have been killed.

In new violence, Israeli aircraft struck a group of militants in northern Gaza today, killing one, Palestinian officials said. The army said the militants were planting a bomb at the time, and Hamas said in a radio broadcast that the dead man belonged to the group.

In the West Bank, a 67-year-old Palestinian man was killed and seven family members were injured in an Israeli arrest raid, police said.

The army said troops who entered the man’s house were attacked with a gas canister and other household objects, and opened fire when one of the Palestinians grabbed a soldier’s rifle.

Hospital officials identified the dead man as Yehia al-Jabari, and said his 65-year-old wife was among the injured. Israel said two wanted men inside the house were arrested.

The violence in Gaza had been expected to top the agenda of Olmert’s meeting with Abbas.

Abbas has proposed a truce agreement that would commit Gaza militants to halt their rocket fire for a month, before expanding the ceasefire to the West Bank.

Hamas, which shares power with Abbas’ Fatah, and other militant groups have said a truce is out of the question as long as Israel keeps up its attacks and refuses to include the West Bank.

Israel has rejected the notion of including the West Bank, especially in light of the latest attacks in Gaza.

Palestinian officials said another key sticking point in the summit preparations was Israel’s refusal to release hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen tax money it collects on behalf of the Palestinians.

Israel froze the payments last year after Hamas came to power, demanding the militant group renounce violence and recognise the Jewish state.

The money is a key source of budget revenue. Combined with international sanctions against Hamas, the cut-off has left the Palestinian government unable to pay full salaries to tens of thousands of employees who support one-third of the Palestinian people.

As Israel and the Palestinians mark the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Mideast war, Olmert said Israel was ready to discuss an Arab peace proposal even as his Palestinian counterpart called the climate between the two sides “catastrophic.”

Israel defeated three Arab armies during the six-day war, capturing the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. Palestinians have been determined to establish a state on those lands ever since.

The Arab peace deal, proposed in 2002 and recently revived, offers a comprehensive peace deal with Israel in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967 and a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees.

Israel has not rejected the idea, but has expressed reservations about a complete withdrawal and opposes resettling Palestinian refugees in Israel.

“I am ready to discuss the Arab peace initiative in an open and sincere manner,” Olmert wrote. “But the talks must be a discussion, not an ultimatum.”

Haniyeh said Israel’s fateful error was to “underestimate the resolve of the Palestinians” to fight the Israeli occupation.

“The first step to change this catastrophic climate is for the West to engage with the Palestinian national unity government,” Haniyeh said.

The rival movements formed the alliance in March in hope of ending the international sanctions imposed on the previous Hamas-only government after the Islamic group swept parliamentary elections last year.

The West has not lifted the sanctions and in most cases, has maintained contacts only with Fatah and independent members of the new government.

Western countries have demanded Hamas renounce violence and recognise Israel’s right to exist – demands it refuses to accept.