JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Sharon and the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, failed yesterday to resolve key issues on Israel’s planned Gaza withdrawal, and Mr. Abbas said he received no positive answers in a “difficult” first meeting since they agreed to a truce four months ago.

With the Gaza pullout to begin in less than two months, the summit had been expected to kick off a determined effort by the two sides to work together to ensure the pullout proceeds smoothly and peacefully.

But a new wave of Palestinian Arab attacks and Israel’s overnight arrest of dozens of terrorists dampened hopes. And the frosty atmosphere at the meeting itself raised doubts over whether the leaders can work together on the withdrawal, much less on further peace moves.

The Palestinians expressed frustration after the more than two-hour session at Mr. Sharon’s official residence.

“This was a difficult meeting, and did not live up to our expectations,” the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, told reporters. “In all the basic issues for which we were expecting positive responses, there were none.”

The Palestinian Arabs wanted concrete results announced at the summit, such as a commitment by Israel to release more prisoners and ease roadblocks and other restrictions that have crippled life in the West Bank. Mr. Abbas needs such achievements to bolster his standing among his people.

Israeli officials said there was some progress. In a speech after the meeting, Mr. Sharon said he and Mr. Abbas “agreed during the meeting on full coordination of our exit from Gaza.” He did not offer details.

Israel also said Mr. Sharon offered to return control of two more West Bank towns to the Palestinian Authority and would consider freeing more prisoners if the Palestinian Arabs took steps to end violence.

The Palestinian Arabs were unmoved. The Palestinian minister in charge of coordinating Israel’s Gaza withdrawal, Mohammed Dahlan, said bitterly: “There was nothing, nothing.”

Messrs. Sharon and Abbas last met February 8 in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, where they agreed to a cease-fire that was hailed as an end to more than four years of conflict.

Violence plummeted then, but it has flared recently. Over the weekend, Islamic Jihad began a series of attacks that killed two Israelis. In response, Israeli forces swept through the West Bank early yesterday, arresting 52 suspected Islamic Jihad members in the first large crackdown since the truce.

Mr. Sharon chided Mr. Abbas at the start of the meeting, saying the violence had to stop.

“When we were in Sharm el-Sheik you said that you would exert all efforts to stop the terror and begin to remove the infrastructure of terror, but the action never happened,” Mr. Sharon said in comments caught by a microphone.

In a sign of the divisions at the meeting, the two leaders did not hold a joint news conference afterward, and Mr. Abbas did not address journalists on his own, as scheduled, sending Mr. Qureia instead.

After the meeting, Israel Radio said Mr. Sharon gave Mr. Abbas permission to begin preparations for reopening Gaza’s airport and harbor. The opening of the ports is seen as key to reducing Gaza’s isolation once Israel pulls out of the coastal strip.

Mr. Sharon also told Mr. Abbas that Israel would hand over the West Bank towns of Qalqiliya and Bethlehem to Palestinian control in two weeks, if the Palestinian Arabs quell attacks, a Sharon adviser, Raanan Gissin, told the Associated Press. Israel also would consider releasing more prisoners and allowing the return of Palestinian Arabs deported for involvement in violence, officials said.

The February truce called for Israel to hand over five towns, but Mr. Sharon froze the process after the first two, charging that the Palestinian Arabs had not disarmed extremists in the areas under their control.

Israel demands that Mr. Abbas crack down on the militants, but Mr. Abbas has shied from armed confrontation, preferring to try to persuade the extremist groups to disarm.

Mr. Gissin said Mr. Sharon offered more gestures in exchange for quiet, including allowing 26,000 more Palestinian Arab laborers and 13,400 more merchants to work in Israel.