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Leaders meet as violence claims boy's life in Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met on Tuesday in a bid to advance peace talks as Israeli troops continued to strike in the Gaza Strip.

Less than three months after relaunching the peace process at a conference in the US with a commitment to try to ink a deal by the end of this year, the negotiations appeared to be stalled amid persistent violence in Gaza.

Israeli troops shot dead a 10-year-old boy and a Palestinian gunman in separate incidents on Tuesday, medics said, bringing to at least 188 the number of people killed since the peace talks resumed, an AFP count showed.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops operating in the area responded when a group of Palestinians opened fire on them.

The armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, said it had fired 13 mortar rounds at an Israeli foot patrol.

In Jerusalem, Olmert met Abbas and top negotiators from both sides for dinner before the two leaders held one-on-one discussions.

The discussions "were deep and tonight the prime minister and the Israeli delegation upheld their obligation to negotiate all final status issues," Saeb Erakat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, said after the talks.

In the days leading up to the meeting, the two sides had been at loggerheads over Jerusalem, with Olmert vowing to leave it to the end of the talks and the Palestinians insisting it should be discussed alongside other core issues.

A senior Israeli official who attended Tuesday's talks said the subject was not raised by either side.

Erakat said the Palestinians "assured the Israeli delegation that we would study the issue of Jerusalem, but we did not discuss all the issues in detail."

Abbas did however "emphasize that it was not possible to postpone any particular final status issue or advance one issue at the expense of another," Erakat said.

"The president said we want complete and total solution for all the issues," he said, referring to the core issues of the decades-old conflict, including Jerusalem, borders, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinians had criticized Olmert for saying on Sunday that Jerusalem would be tackled last after a key coalition partner, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said it would quit his government the moment the issue was raised.
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