Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will sit down together next week to try to halt a two-week-old explosion of violence that has seen southern Israel battered by rockets and Gaza pummeled by airstrikes, AP reported Abbas hopes to line up Palestinian factions behind a truce deal before the meeting, but the fire shows no sign of letting up. Four Palestinians were killed in fighting Tuesday, while three others died while mishandling explosives, Palestinian officials said. Abbas and Olmert promised U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in March to meet every two weeks to try to get long-stalled peace talks moving again. But they have since met only once on April 15. In the interim, a late-November truce between Israel and Gaza militants has collapsed under a hail of Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli retaliation _ making another meeting all the more urgent. No venue has been set, but the West Bank town of Jericho has been proposed. Olmert's office said the prime minister intends to demand that the Palestinians halt their rocket fire on southern Israeli towns bordering Gaza. Palestinian officials said the meeting would take place June 7; Olmert's office did not confirm the date.
