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Israel says power cuts will not cause crisis

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Israel would not cause a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip despite his government's intention to cut power to the territory in hopes of curbing rocket attacks.

He made the pledge on Friday during a working lunch with Abbas at the Israeli leader's Jerusalem residence, responding to Abbas' concern that electricity stoppages could hit hospitals and other essential services, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

The meeting was the latest in a series aimed at working out differences between the two ahead of a US-sponsored peace conference. The men greeted one another with warm handshakes and broad smiles. Aides say Olmert and Abbas have good chemistry, but talks between them are so far showing little evidence of progress.

Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said the sides reaffirmed their commitment to the "road map" peace plan, which envisages an independent Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.

The plan was endorsed by the US in 2003 but never moved past the declaratory stage, with each side blaming the other for failing to meet its commitments.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Israeli threat to cut power cast a shadow over talks, calling it "particularly provocative given that Palestinians and Israelis are meeting to negotiate an agreement on the core issues for ending the conflict between them."

The plan, approved on Thursday by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, is to cut electricity for an initial 15 minutes after a rocket attack, gradually increasing the length of outages if attacks continue. Gaza is ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas, while the more moderate Abbas runs the West Bank.

Palestinians in Gaza fired at least eight rockets and 10 mortar rounds into southern Israel on Thursday and another five rockets on Friday, the military said. No damage or casualties were reported.

There was no disruption of power to Gaza, but Israeli forces continued operations against militants there. Palestinian officials said five gunmen were killed in firefights and an airstrike.

Erekat, who was at Friday's meeting, said Olmert and Abbas agreed to make a fresh push to implement the "road map" program and have the quartet of Middle East peacemakers -- the US, Russia, the EU and the UN -- act as referee.

"There is a need to activate the role of the Quartet as mentioned in the road map, if we want to establish a credible peace process," Erekat said.

But on the key question of a joint statement of principles to guide the US-sponsored conference, the two sides agreed only that their negotiating teams would meet again on the subject in the coming week.
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