Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet today to try to overcome disputes over Jewish settlements that have paralysed US-backed peace talks.
The first two negotiating sessions between the Israeli and Palestinian teams ended in discord with the Palestinians protesting Israeli plans to build hundreds of new homes in an area near Jerusalem known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Abu Ghneim.
Today's meeting in Jerusalem between Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas will be their first since last month's US peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in which the leaders set the goal of reaching a statehood agreement before US President George W Bush leaves office in January 2009.
It is unclear how Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas can bridge their differences and jumpstart talks ahead of Mr Bush's visit to the region early next month. Both Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas have been weakened politically and questions remain about Mr Bush's commitment in pressing for painful concessions from both sides.
The Palestinians have so far ruled out negotiating substantive issues such as borders, the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees until Israel commits to halting all settlement activity, including so-called natural growth, as called for in the long-stalled "road map" peace plan.
Israel defines its road map obligations differently, arguing that construction within built-up areas of existing settlements is permissible as long as no new settlements are built and no additional Palestinian lands are confiscated.
Palestinians see the building of Har Homa as the last rampart in a wall of settlements encircling Arab East Jerusalem, cutting it off from Bethlehem and rest of the occupied West Bank. They say it is a strategic move by Israel to pre-empt any possibility of East Jerusalem becoming the Palestinian capital.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops captured two top members of the Islamic Jihad militant group in raids in the occupied West Bank today.
An Islamic Jihad leader, identified as Mohammad Assayda, was taken near the West Bank city of Nablus, the militant group said.
Mr Assayda, who was released from Israeli jail in September, is a lecturer at al-Najah University.
Another member of the Islamic organisation Samer al-Saadi was captured in a separate raid in a refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, according to a Palestinian security officer.