The Palestinian president Mr Yasser Arafat and Israeli statesman Mr
Shimon Peres have ended the first meeting of a fresh round of talks where they were to discuss outgoing US President Bill Clinton's peace plan. The talks, which lasted over two hours, were held in a guest-house near Arafat's office in Gaza city.
No details were immediately available about the outcome of the meeting.
The two negotiation teams arrived for talks in Arafat's guesthouse. The Palestinian side included negotiators Ahmed Qorei and Saeb Erakat, Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina, information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo and Mohammed Dahlan, preventative security chief for the Gaza Strip.
Peres was joined by acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, former army chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Gilad Sher, chief of staff to caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
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Mr Yasser Arafat
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Arafat and Peres, a leading Israeli dove and current regional cooperation minister, shared in the 1993 Nobel Prize for signing the Oslo peace agreement, which paved the way for Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Peres has expressed fears the peace process was entering an even more volatile phase with a US presidential transition and a looming victory by Israel's right-wing camp in the forthcoming national elections.
"The objective of this meeting is to ensure that during this transition period, there will not be another wave of terrorism," Peres said before the two met.
The Clinton plan calls for Palestinian sovereignty over the Arab quarters of east Jerusalem and over the al-Aqsa mosque compound, as well as all of the Gaza Strip and 95 percent of the West Bank.
In exchange, the Palestinians are being asked to renounce their right of return to lands lost since the creation of Israel in 1948. There are an estimated 3.7 million Palestinian refugees living mostly in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Earlier, two Palestinians convicted of collaborating with Israel were executed by firing squad, one in public, after Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat ratified their death sentences. Palestinian security courts had found both guilty of providing Israel with information that led to the killing of Palestinian activists during the past three-and-a-half months of unrest.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, Allan Bani Odeh was shot in a public square as thousands of Palestinians chanted 'God is Greatest'. Majdi Mikkawi was shot at the main Gaza police station, Palestinian police said.
Today's executions brought to five the number of Palestinians put to death by their own side since 1994, when the Palestinian Authority took control of most of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
Four other suspected Palestinian collaborators with Israel were to go on trial in Bethlehem later today.
Meanwhile the latest fatality in the violence was a 22-year-old member of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. He was shot dead by Israeli soldiers yesterday in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Reuters