RAMALLAH (West Bank) - PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas called on Saturday for talks with Israel despite a surge of violence and said that a just peace was his people's goal.

'We condemn all the attacks, we demand peace and we are determined to make peace, and there is no other path but the path of peace based on international justice,' Mr Abbas told a rally at his headquarters.

A Palestinian gunman killed eight Jewish seminary students on Thursday, the bloodiest attack in Israel in two years. Hamas, which had vowed to avenge the more than 125 Palestinians killed in a recent Gaza offensive by Israel, claimed responsibility.

The shootings in Jerusalem triggered calls by Israeli right-wingers to scrap US-sponsored talks with Mr Abbas.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a women's conference near Tel Aviv on Saturday night that there was no difference between the shooting attack and Gaza militant rocket fire at southern Israel, and said Israel would curb the rocket strikes.

'There is a direct connection between the rockets which disrupt the lives of the residents of the south and the attack in Jerusalem, both were intended by their perpetrators to make our lives here intolerable. It will not happen,' Mr Olmert said.

He added that Israel was preparing to implement government decisions taken last week to 'achieve the deterrent' to stop the rocket fire, but he did not elaborate.

Despite the attacks, the Israeli government has vowed to hold course in talks.

The Jewish state, with Western backing, shuns Hamas, making Mr Abbas the focus of any hope for progress toward a permanent coexistence accord. But Mr Abbas's mandate has been limited to the occupied West Bank since his Islamist Hamas rivals took over Gaza last year.

Talks between Mr Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have been held up due to Israel's settlement construction on West Bank land where, along with Gaza, Palestinians want to establish a state.

Many Israelis are reluctant to give up the West Bank after a 2005 withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza was followed by the rise of Hamas and frequent cross-border rocket fire.

Mr Abbas, who briefly suspended peace talks in protest at Israel's attacks in Gaza, reiterated a demand that the rocket salvoes stop and endorsed Egypt's efforts - so far inconclusive - to broker a truce by Hamas and other Palestinian militants.

Demands
But the Palestinian president made clear his view that real calm could only be secured by sweeping and sincere peace talks.

He listed core demands for agreement on future borders, the status of Jerusalem, and the fate of millions of Palestinian war refugees and thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

'If we were to get these, then we would be ready for a just, fair and comprehensive peace agreement,' Mr Abbas said.

Mr Olmert has pledged to work towards securing an accord with Mr Abbas before January, when US President George W. Bush steps down. But, like Mr Abbas, he is weak domestically. He also depends on rightist factions to keep his coalition government going.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Saturday that a special US-Israeli-Palestinian committee, led by US General William Fraser, would meet probably on Thursday to examine to what extent the sides were meeting their commitments under a long-stalled peace 'road map.' Israel has vowed to keep major West Bank settlement blocs as well as the ancient Old City in the heart of East Jerusalem, among Arab territories captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem its capital - a status not recognised internationally - while Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as capital of their future state. -- REUTERS

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