The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, met here on Thursday to try to dispel the tensions of recent days, and they recommitted themselves to refrain from acts that would prejudice a final peace treaty while they try to negotiate one, officials from both sides said.
This was the first meeting of the two men since the Middle East conference convened by the United States in Annapolis, Md., a month ago, when they agreed to try to negotiate a final peace settlement before the end of 2008. Their negotiating teams had met twice since then, but both times fruitlessly, as mutual grievances were aired.
Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert get along well, their aides say, and Thursday’s meeting in Mr. Olmert’s official residence here was described as cordial and positive. The two men met with their three lead negotiators for an hour, then met alone for another hour, but little of substance emerged regarding the task before the two sides.
Instead, they seemed to want to provide a sense of momentum before President Bush arrives for his first presidential visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, expected on Jan. 9.
Mr. Bush is said by officials to have planned a meeting with Mr. Olmert in Jerusalem and then a meeting afterward with Mr. Abbas in Jericho, and both men want to have something positive to report, their aides say.
The lead Palestinian negotiator, Ahmed Qurei, said the two sides agreed Thursday “to start our negotiations next week,” when they would talk about “forming committees and the structure” of the talks.
“We are going to start in a serious way,” he said in an interview. “Both sides proved that they want to proceed forward.”
The period before this meeting was dominated by Palestinian accusations that Israel was violating its commitments to freeze the growth of settlements on occupied land. In recent days, Israel announced a tender for about 300 new apartments in Har Homa, a Jerusalem suburb built on land annexed by Israel after the 1967 war, when it unilaterally increased the size of Jerusalem to take in West Bank villages.
The Israelis regard Har Homa as part of Jerusalem and not a settlement, while the Palestinians and much of the world regard it as a settlement; the annexation of East Jerusalem and lands expanding the city have not been accepted internationally in the absence of a peace treaty.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice publicly criticized the Har Homa announcement, which was apparently not approved in advance by Mr. Olmert. Israeli officials said Ms. Rice had called both leaders to urge them to start to make progress.
Mr. Abbas asked her to “encourage Israel to freeze its settlement policy, which is an obstacle on the path to peace negotiations,” said his spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
In the meeting, Mr. Olmert reconfirmed the Israeli position that there would be no new settlements, no new expropriation of land and no new settlement activity outside the built-up areas of existing settlements that Israel intends to keep in any final deal. He made no promises on Har Homa, his aides said, but he reassured Mr. Abbas about Israel’s “good will.”
The Palestinians interpret a settlement freeze to mean a freeze on all financing, building and expansion of settlements beyond Israel’s 1967 boundaries.
The Americans are supposed to judge whether both sides meet their commitments under the first stage of the dormant “road map” for peace, agreed upon in 2003. Carrying out the first stage is supposed to be a process parallel to the talks. But no judging mechanism has been established.
Mr. Qurei said that both sides agreed Thursday that “the Americans should take their responsibility as a judge of the obligations under the road map, and Israel will take some procedures to remove the obstacles.”
Asked if Israel had agreed to remove some of the outposts it regarded as illegal, he refused to be more specific, but an Israeli official said Mr. Olmert promised Mr. Abbas to take some actions to show that the path of negotiation would bring “tangible results.”
Under the first stage of the road map, the Palestinians are supposed to begin to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism by working to disband terrorist and militant groups outside the official security forces. Israel says the Palestinians have done little to meet their commitments, while Israel has not yet disbanded the illegal outposts it had promised Mr. Bush would be gone before the previous Israeli elections.
Israel has interpreted the Palestinians’ earlier refusals to negotiate because of Har Homa as an essentially rhetorical crisis intended to push Washington to intervene to move the talks along, an Israeli government official said on condition of anonymity. But so long as the Islamic faction Hamas controls Gaza, and Mr. Abbas does not, the official said, the “negotiations are virtual.”
In a statement, Mr. Olmert’s spokesman, Mark Regev, said that the two sides “reiterated their commitment to move forward on all the difficult and sensitive issues.” They also “reiterated their commitments to all their obligations under the road map and committed themselves to a continuation of a good faith, serious and continuous dialogue,” Mr. Regev said.
In Gaza on Thursday, seven Palestinian militants were killed by Israel in four episodes, Palestinian medics said. Palestinians said five of the dead were members of Islamic Jihad and two were from Hamas. At least 16 other Palestinians were said to have been wounded.
An Israeli Army spokesman said that ground forces on a “routine operation” inside Gaza shot at militants who had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a military vehicle. The air force fired at a fourth man who was involved, the spokesman said. Later, he said, Israeli forces fired rockets at two cars loaded with explosives and at a group of gunmen near Khan Yunis.
One of the dead was Muhammad Abdullah, a senior commander of Islamic Jihad in Gaza. In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed a former security force member who fled as they tried to arrest him at his house.
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