GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Israeli and Palestinian leaders will meet next week in the Palestinian territories for the first time in a bid to restore a shattered ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a senior Palestinian official said Thursday.
The announcement came amid a slowdown in violence after two weeks of fighting between Palestinian rocket squads and Israeli forces. The fighting is expected to dominate the agenda of next week's meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"The president is working night and day for a mutual, comprehensive cease-fire," said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a top aide to Abbas.
Abu Rdeneh said next week's summit, scheduled for June 7, "is expected in the Palestinian territories." Officials would not say where, but in the past they have mentioned the West Bank oasis of Jericho as the likely venue.
While the two leaders have held a series of meetings over the past year, the Palestinians haven't hosted any of the gatherings. Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said a West Bank meeting is "a possibility," but said the date and location still have not been finalized.
Olmert and Abbas promised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in March to meet every two weeks with the aim of moving beyond day-to-day issues and begin discussing the outlines of a final peace agreement. However, the men have met just once since then, in April, and next week's talks will focus on the fighting.
A five-month truce in Gaza unraveled earlier this month when the Hamas militant group began firing barrages of rockets into southern Israel, prompting Israel to respond with a series of airstrikes. More than 50 Palestinians, most of them militants, and two Israeli civilians have been killed.
In the latest violence, Israeli aircraft attacked a Palestinian rocket-launching squad in northern Gaza. No injuries were reported.
"We will actively pursue and hit these rocket launchers as well as those who operate them," said David Baker, an official in Olmert's office.
Despite the flareup, there were signs of a slowdown in fighting. Hamas' military wing, which has been responsible for most of the recent rocket fire, said it has not launched a projectile in 48 hours.
"Perhaps there is an unannounced cease-fire," Abu Rdeneh said.
The smaller Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for Thursday's rocket fire. In a separate incident, Islamic Jihad said two members were slightly injured in an Israeli artillery strike. But the army denied involvement.
Still, the number of rocket attacks has sharply dropped in recent days.
Israel resolved on Wednesday to keep striking Gaza rocket squads and said it wasn't negotiating a truce with radical groups. Israeli officials believe the Israeli air campaign is the reason for the reduced rocket fire.
Abbas, a moderate who favors peacemaking, has been pushing Hamas to restore the Gaza cease-fire. But he has been ineffective in halting militant attacks. Abbas' Fatah movement and Hamas are partners in the Palestinian coalition government.
That partnership is extremely fragile, however, and Hamas began attacking Israel in an apparent attempt to halt a fresh wave of Palestinian infighting.
Abbas has proposed a truce agreement that would commit Gaza militants to halt their rocket fire for a month to permit negotiations on a more comprehensive cease-fire including the West Bank.
Militants have said a truce is out of the question as long as Israel keeps up its attacks and refuses to bring a truce to the West Bank, where it frequently conducts arrest raids. Israel has so far rejected the notion of applying the truce to West Bank, especially in light of the latest round of attacks from Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hamas and Fatah are expected to meet next week to discuss shoring up an internal truce called after this month's infighting, which killed more than 50 Palestinians, said a senior Egyptian security official.
Both sides have sent representatives to Cairo to individually speak to Egyptian mediators about the reasons for the latest outbreak in fighting, and the possibilities of coming to a truce with Israel.
The two sides are expected to agree to form a committee that will include an impartial Egyptian observer to call judgment on violations of the truce currently holding between Palestinians, said Lt. Col. Burhan Hamad, head of the Gaza-based Egyptian security delegation.
"But it's not a guarantee against fighting," Burhan warned. Although the internal truce has mostly held, mistrust runs deep. Both sides have welcomed Egyptian involvement.
"We want to get out of mutual accusations through the refereeing of a third party, trusted by both sides, and that is the Egyptians," said Mohammed Dahlan, a Fatah strongman in Gaza, speaking on an Arab news television station.
