The United States will step up efforts to salvage the "road map" to Middle East peace on Friday when Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in the region for talks.
The move comes as Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas today followed up an unsuccessful bid by Egyptian envoys to press militants to call a truce with Israel, by convening talks in Gaza City with representatives of 13 radical factions, including Hamas.
US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice is also likely make efforts to mediate when she visits the region on June 29th.
Mr Powell was last in Israel and the Palestinian territories in May ahead of a June 4th summit in Jordan in which US President George W Bush, Mr Abbas and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon affirmed the road map that envisages Palestinian statehood by 2005.
Since the three-way gathering, tit-for-tat Israeli-Palestinian attacks have killed more than 50 people and stymied US attempts to put the peace plan into motion.
Mr Sharon has ruled out concessions unless Mr Abbas subdues Hamas, the fundamentalist Islamic group at the forefront of suicide bombings that have killed scores of Israelis since the start of a Palestinian uprising for statehood in September 2000.
But senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials have been holding talks on an Israeli offer to pull troops out of the northern Gaza Strip and West Bank city of Bethlehem, a proposal that could on the outcome of truce efforts.
A senior Palestinian official said security talks today were snagged over an Israeli demand to retain control of a north-south Gaza Strip road after any pullback.
"The Israeli offer did not change the reality of the occupation," the official said.