Palestinians, Israel Will Resume Talks, Rice Says

JERUSALEM — With help from an Egyptian cease-fire proposal for the Gaza Strip, Secretary of State Rice persuaded the American-backed Palestinian leadership yesterday to resume peace talks with Israel.

Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, had halted the negotiations Sunday because of an Israeli incursion into Gaza and had rebuffed Ms. Rice's entreaties Tuesday to change his mind. But after speaking to Mr. Abbas by telephone yesterday, Ms. Rice announced here that the peace talks were back on track.

Mr. Abbas later confirmed the reversal in a statement from his West Bank headquarters. He said his moderate Palestinian faction remained committed to the "strategic choice" of negotiations as a means for achieving an independent state alongside Israel.

"We have the intention of resuming the peace process," he said. Neither Ms. Rice nor Mr. Abbas said when the talks would restart. President Bush, who helped launch the peace talks at a November conference in Annapolis, Md., is pushing for agreement by the end of his term on the main issues of a final settlement — borders, the status of Palestinian refugees, and conflicting claims to Jerusalem. But the effort is threatened by violence in Gaza, where the ruling Hamas faction calls for Israel's destruction and opposes the talks. Israel said its five-day assault on Gaza, which ended Monday, was aimed at stopping a growing barrage of rocket fire at its border communities. Palestinian outrage about the death toll in Gaza, which exceeded 100 and included many civilians, prompted Mr. Abbas to suspend the talks.

Ms. Rice had planned her two-day visit to Egypt, the West Bank, and Israel before the incursion, hoping to advance the talks. Instead she struggled to rescue them from collapse.

"Hamas, which holds the people of Gaza hostage in their hands, is now trying to make the path to a Palestinian state hostage to them," Ms. Rice said during a news conference in Jerusalem with Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. "We cannot allow that to happen."

Mr. Abbas's spokesman, Nabil abu Rudaineh, said two assurances from Ms. Rice swayed the Palestinian leader to drop his condition that a truce take hold in Gaza before talks resume.

Ms. Rice said she was sending assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, David Welch, back to Cairo for discussions about Gaza.

And she promised to dispatch Lieutenant General William Fraser III to the region next week to assess progress on incremental steps agreed to in Annapolis, Md. Mr. Abbas's aides said they hope General Fraser will pressure Israel to halt Jewish settlement activity and to ease travel restrictions for Palestinians in the West Bank. Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in a news conference with Ms. Rice on Tuesday, suggested that the effort to isolate Hamas cannot continue. "We have to admit that Hamas is part of the Palestinian equation and should be dealt with," he said. "If Hamas corrects its path, stops using violence and puts an end to military operations, this will open the door for it to join the [peace] process."