MIDDLE EAST:President Bush and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert pledged yesterday to bolster Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, as Israel sought to tighten the screws on Hamas Islamists who control Gaza.
Bush and Olmert reaffirmed their commitment to the vision of a Palestinian state but offered no concrete plan to achieve a negotiated deal with Mr Abbas while his new emergency cabinet rules only the West Bank and Gaza remains in Hamas's hands.
"He is the president of all the Palestinians," Mr Bush said of Mr Abbas, with Mr Olmert at his side in the Oval Office. "He has spoken out for moderation. He is a voice that is a reasonable voice amongst the extremists in your neighbourhood."
Western powers have rallied behind Mr Abbas with promises of renewed aid, hoping to contain damage from Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week and focus instead on reviving peace moves between Palestinian moderates and Israel.
The object is to further isolate Hamas, branded a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel and the European Union. But to date that policy has only emboldened the militant group in its challenge to Mr Abbas.
Meeting to co-ordinate strategy, Mr Olmert and Mr Bush threw their support behind behind Mr Abbas, who has dismissed the Hamas-led government and formed a cabinet of Fatah loyalists in the West Bank as a counterweight to the Islamists' control of Gaza.
"Our hope is that president Abbas and prime minister (Salam) Fayyad . . . will be strengthened to the point where they can lead the Palestinians in a different direction," Mr Bush said before the meeting with Mr Olmert. The United States and EU pledged on Monday to lift an economic and diplomatic embargo imposed on the Palestinian Authority in March 2006 after Hamas won elections and rejected calls to recognize Israel and renounce violence.
Mr Olmert, who has promised to release Palestinian tax revenues withheld since Hamas came to power, said he wants to make every possible effort to co-operate with Mr Abbas.
But he stopped short of bowing to Mr Abbas's push for full-scale peace talks, and Mr Bush showed no signs of pressuring the Israeli leader on the matter.
In Jerusalem, senior Israeli and Western officials said Israel plans to choke off all but humanitarian and basic supplies to Gaza. One Israeli official described the impoverished coastal strip as a "terrorist-controlled entity".
Israel evacuated Palestinians wounded in Gaza fighting at a border crossing yesterday where dozens have been trapped for days since Hamas routed Fatah forces in the coastal strip.
Israeli authorities also permitted truckloads of food and medical equipment sent by international aid groups to enter Gaza, Israeli radio stations reported.