German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders yesterday as part of a push for renewed peacemaking, but aides said she would not meet members of the Palestinian unity government.
Merkel, holder of the EU's rotating presidency, is trying to build on momentum from last week's Arab summit but has said that obstacles lie ahead.
Arab leaders have revived a five-year-old peace plan that offers Israel normal ties with all Arab countries in return for withdrawal from land seized in the 1967 Middle East war, the creation of a Palestinian state and a "just solution" for Palestinians displaced in 1948 during Israel's creation.
Merkel met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Saturday night and held morning talks with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni before touring the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.
She was due to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in the West Bank city of Ramallah later yesterday and then return to Jerusalem for further talks with Olmert.
During a visit to Jordan on Saturday, Merkel urged the Palestinian unity government to embrace the demands of the Quartet of Middle East mediators to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by existing peace accords.
The Palestinian government's program contains a promise to "respect" previous Israeli-Palestinian pacts but does not call for recognizing Israel and says resistance against the Jewish state in "all its forms" is a legitimate Palestinian right.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army overnight sealed off the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip for the duration of the Jewish week-long Passover holiday, a military spokeswoman said yesterday.
"The closure will be maintained for security reasons during the eight days of the holiday," she said.
Passover, during which Jews celebrate their Biblical escape from Egypt, begins at sunset today and finishes at sunset next Monday.
During the closure, doctors, journalists, lawyers, staff of non-governmental organizations and those in need of humanitarian aid would be allowed to travel to the Palestinian territories, the army said in a statement.
Olmert said he was not ready to order a large-scale military operation in Gaza, despite the military's warnings of a Hamas arms buildup in the coastal territory.
Israel fears that the Islamic militant Hamas is trying to copy the tactics of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a draw in last summer's war in Lebanon.
In an interview broadcast on Saturday, Olmert was asked whether a large-scale Israeli invasion of Gaza was needed to halt an arms buildup in Gaza.
"The question is if it has to be a military operation, if it has to be a military operation by us and if it has to be now," Olmert told Channel 2 TV. "We won't shy away from a military operation if we reach the conclusion, after a thorough check, that it is possible, based on logic and level-headedness and no exaggerations, that there is no better way than this."
Asked whether this was the case now, he said: "This is not the case."
Hamas has exploited a period of relative calm to smuggle large numbers of anti-tank missiles and weapons-grade explosives into Gaza, using tunnels under the border with Egypt, Israeli security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Hamas dismissed the claims as Israeli propaganda. A spokesman for the group, Islam Shahwan, said the Hamas force has 5,500 fighters.
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