Empowering Abbas is key to peace talks: Israel

BRITAIN: Empowering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is key to breaking a deadlock in the Middle East peace process, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in London on Monday, calling him a "weak" but "moderate" leader.

Livni said reaching a final-status agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, based on a secure Israel alongside a Palestinian homeland, looked impossible in the short term.

But strengthening the hand of Abbas - of the moderate Fatah movement who is trying to patch together a coalition with the governing Hamas Islamists - could help provide a way forward.

"I think that final-status agreement is not feasible, especially in the current situation but I think stagnation is not an option," Livni said in a speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

"I believe we should find a way to promote a process in stages, to work with Abu Mazen (Abbas) as a moderate leader and to find a way to strengthen him and to promote a process."

Livni gave no further details and said the task was not easy. Any process was on hold until the outcome of talks between Abbas and Hamas on a coalition government was known, she said.

Palestinian officials said earlier on Monday those talks had been suspended due to disagreement over distributing ministries.

The hope is a new government that unites "technocrats" and Fatah members might open the way for the sanctions to be lifted.

The United States has said it will only end sanctions if the unity government recognises Israel, renounces violence and accepts all existing peace deals with Israel.

Livni said the West's insistence on those three requirements helps to strengthen Abbas.

Hamas, however, which fully intends to remain part of any new government, has said it will never recognise Israel.

"The situation is complicated and we are facing extremists in power ... and the moderate leaders are the weak ones and Abu Mazen (Abbas) is a moderate leader but unfortunately he is maybe too weak," Livni said.

She said the success of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority would send the wrong message to extremists in the region.

She was also sceptical of suggestions by members of a bipartisan U.S. panel exploring policy options in Iraq and some Western leaders that Syria should be brought into dialogue to help stem violence in Iraq.

"The message right now should be if they want to be part of the international community they have to behave. They have to stop their support for the terrorist organisations," she said.

Meanwhile Israeli troops and tanks pushed deep into the Gaza Strip in two separate raids on Tuesday, clashing with Palestinian gunmen in Gaza City, local residents and witnesses said.

A column of about 30 tanks penetrated the heart of Gaza City and entered the Zeitoun district, a known militant stronghold, they said. Residents said there were no reports of any casualties in what appeared to be the most intensive Israeli ground force raid into Gaza City since Israel launched an offensive in June after militants captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid.

A smaller force raided Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, an area more frequently targeted by Israeli forces in their attempts to stop militants from firing rockets into the Jewish state.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed ground troops were operating in the Gaza Strip but gave no further details.

Israel has killed more than 320 Palestinians in Gaza, about half of them civilians, since it began its offensive.

Israel has increased raids in northern Gaza since a Palestinian rocket strike last Wednesday killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded a man in the town of Sderot.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz said on Monday Israel would carry on fighting militants who fired rockets into Israel from Gaza but there were no plans to reoccupy the coastal territory the Jewish state quit last year.

"I emphasise that our hand is outstretched in peace, but anybody who rejects it ... should know that ... we will do all we can to sever the hand which uses terror," Peretz said in a speech carried by Israeli radio.

"We have no intention of making concessions to anybody, we have no intention of being dragged in to reoccupying Gaza, but we have every intention of protecting our citizens."

London, Gaza, Tuesday, Reuters