Israeli and Palestinian Leaders Meet

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met informally Thursday in Jordan, and aides said the leaders would hold official talks in coming weeks.

The two leaders attended a breakfast with Jordan’s King Abdullah II as part of a two-day gathering of Nobel laureates and business and political leaders near the ruins of the ancient town of Petra.

Olmert and Abbas shook hands and smiled for the cameras but did not delve into substantive matters, officials said. It was their first meeting since Olmert’s centrist Kadima party won elections in March.

Olmert expressed regret to Abbas over the deaths of more than a dozen Palestinian civilians in recent Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, the Associated Press reported. “It is against our policy, and I am very, very sorry,” Olmert said.

Later at a conference in Jerusalem, Olmert said Israel would “continue to carry out preventive strikes against planned terrorist attacks and against all those involved in the attempt to harm our citizens.”

After the meeting in Petra, Abbas told reporters that the two sides would begin planning next week for an official face-to-face session. Aides to both men said the meeting probably would take place next month.

Abbas, a relative moderate who has jousted for months with the radical Hamas movement now in charge of the Palestinian government, has been eager to sit down with Olmert in hopes of reviving long-dormant peace talks.

The Israeli prime minister has promised since the March elections that such a meeting would take place soon. Olmert wants to set national borders by 2010 and has said he will do so unilaterally if he deems there is no chance for progress in negotiations with the Palestinians.

Under Olmert’s plan, called a “realignment,” Israel would withdraw from most of the West Bank while consolidating its grip on the main Jewish settlements closer to Israel. The idea was the centerpiece of Kadima’s campaign, but recent Israeli polls have shown a drop in support. King Abdullah opposes any attempt to set borders unilaterally.

The Bush administration has urged Israel to negotiate with Abbas under the U.S.-backed diplomatic blueprint known as the “road map” to peace. The United States and European Union view Abbas as the only realistic alternative to Hamas, which they consider a terrorist group, and see fruitful talks with Israel as a way to bolster him.

Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who attended the Petra conference, said it was important that any meeting produce good results.

“Olmert knows that the most dangerous thing now, when the Palestinians have not yet settled their internal dispute, would be for the meeting to end in failure,” he was quoted as telling the daily Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

The gathering in Petra came as Israel faced sharp criticism for a string of airstrikes that have killed 14 Palestinian civilians in little more than a week. On Wednesday, a man and woman in the town of Khan Yunis were killed when an Israeli missile hit a house instead of its target, a vehicle believed to be carrying militants.

More than a dozen people were injured in that strike, which took place a day after three children were slain in an Israeli missile attack north of Gaza City. On June 13, nine civilians were killed when an Israeli aircraft fired at a car carrying militants who were thought to be on their way to launch rockets into southern Israel.

Peace activists and some leftist Israeli politicians urged the military to stop firing missiles into the densely populated Gaza Strip.

“The continued incidents over the past week where innocent civilians were killed is not acceptable, the loss of human lives are not ‘misses,’ ” the Israeli group Peace Now said Thursday in a statement. “The continuation of attacks plays into the hands of terrorists and will not solve the Kassam problem.”

Crude Kassam rockets launched by Palestinian militants from northern Gaza regularly land in or near the southern Israeli town of Sderot, terrifying residents and killing five people since 2004.

Israel’s military has expressed regret for the casualties. Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the army’s chief of staff, ordered an investigation on the latest airstrikes.

In other developments, an armed Palestinian man was killed in a shootout with Israeli forces during a raid in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He was identified as Ayman Ratib, a 26-year-old intelligence officer.