Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, met Monday and agreed to set up a team of negotiators to flesh out their understandings of what a permanent, two-state solution would look like and require.
Officials of both sides said the two men had also agreed to set up eight joint ministerial committees to work on mutual issues like communications, security and economic cooperation. Israeli ministers will work only with Palestinian ministers of the caretaker government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, based in Ramallah, not with Hamas ministers in Gaza of the government that Mr. Abbas dismissed in June after Hamas took control of Gaza.
Mr. Olmert also promised Mr. Abbas that he would work to release 100 more Palestinian prisoners during the holy month of Ramadan, which begins soon, and that he would bring the list to the Israeli cabinet next Sunday. Mr. Olmert said that the Ministry of Defense was working on a plan to reduce the number of fixed checkpoints in the West Bank and that it should have it ready for him next week. Israeli security services have objected to reducing the number of checkpoints, contending that they are an important part of a security network that stops many suicide bombings. But Mr. Olmert is said to want to try to accommodate the needs of Mr. Abbas and Mr. Fayyad for quick improvements on the ground in the West Bank.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, of the Labor Party, is said by Olmert aides to be dragging his feet on the issue, in part to shore up his security credentials after his failed effort at a comprehensive peace with Yasir Arafat, the former Palestinian leader.
In another important gesture to Mr. Abbas, Palestinian officials said, Israel has agreed to register 5,000 Palestinians living in the Palestinian territories but without legal status and thus unable to travel. Israel keeps the population register of the territories, even of Gaza, from which it withdrew. Some 54,000 people are unregistered, Israeli officials said. The registry, run by Israel, also records births, deaths, marriages, address changes and identity numbers. Through the registry, for example, Israel controls whether a Gazan can legally move to the West Bank.
The two men spent an hour together alone after a larger, two-hour luncheon session at which Mr. Fayyad spoke about what he hoped for from the Israeli government and ministers. Mr. Fayyad is eager for economic and security cooperation, to show Palestinians that moderation can bring more freedom of movement, more investment, more jobs and more safety.
Saeb Erekat, an Abbas aide and Palestinian negotiator, said that the selection of the negotiating team was significant. Israel said its side would consist of two Olmert aides and a representative each from the Foreign and Defense Ministries.
The hope is to agree on a text for an international meeting called by the United States and expected to take place in Washington in November. Israeli officials played down expectations, though. Mr. Olmert has said he would like a statement of principles about the shape of a peace accord and a future Palestinian state. But too specific a plan could bring down his government.
In other developments, Israelis have been speculating about two military operations in the past few days about which little has been revealed.
The more concrete was a reported Israeli undercover raid late Friday night into the southern Gaza city of Rafah by commandos in Hamas police uniforms who captured a Hamas military commander, Mohawah al-Qadi, and brought him to Israel by helicopter. Mr. Qadi is said to know details of the capture in June 2006 of an Israeli corporal, Gilad Shalit, who is still being held.
The more important was what Syria has said was an Israeli Air Force raid into Syria at dawn on Thursday. The Syrians said that they had forced the Israeli planes to flee and denied that they caused any damage. Israeli officials have said nothing about the report. But Mr. Olmert went out of his way during the cabinet meeting on Sunday to praise the military for its work, and the Israeli military censor has deleted most of what was written about the Syrian claim, even speculation, from the Israeli news media.
Syrians speculated that the planes had been on a raid and attacked a target, possibly new Russian-supplied radars, chemical-weapons facilities or exiled Palestinian leaders of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. But Syrian officials were not admitting to any damage, and Israelis were not talking.
Rocket Wounds Israelis
JERUSALEM, Tuesday, Sept. 11 (AP) — A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck a tent filled with sleeping soldiers in a southern Israeli Army base, wounding more than 25 early Tuesday, Israeli medics and the army said.
Eli Bin, director of the Magen David Adom rescue service, said one of the hurt soldiers was in critical condition, two were seriously wounded, 25 others were slightly to moderately hurt. The wounded were being evacuated to hospitals in southern Israel.
The army confirmed that the rocket hit southern Israel less than a mile north of the Gaza Strip. Islamic Jihad, a small, radical, militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
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