GAZA CITY, Jan. 26 -- Israeli and Palestinian officials on Wednesday held high-level political talks for the first time since Israel suspended contacts two weeks ago after saying that the new president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was not doing enough to combat terrorism.
Dov Weissglas, a top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator with Israel, met for about two hours and agreed to hold another session next week to prepare for an eventual summit between Sharon and Abbas, according to a statement by Sharon's office.
"The contacts were resumed in wake of the positive developments in the Palestinian Authority and the effort to prevent terrorism," the statement said, "and that the contacts are conditional on comprehensive Palestinian activity against terrorism, violence and incitement."
Israel had suspended all contacts with the Palestinians after guerrillas killed six Israelis at a border crossing in the Gaza Strip on Jan. 13. Security services on both sides resumed contacts last week.
Several hundred Palestinian security officers were preparing to deploy late Wednesday or early Thursday in the central and southern Gaza Strip in a bid to stop militants from firing rockets and mortars at Jewish settlements in Gaza and towns inside Israel, Palestinian security sources said.
A similar deployment last week in northern Gaza contributed to a sharp decrease in Palestinian attacks and Israeli counterstrikes. However, violence did flare in two spots Wednesday: A 6-year-old girl was shot and killed in the southern Gaza Strip, and Israeli soldiers killed a militant from the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, in the West Bank town of Qalqilyah, according to Israeli military and Palestinian security officials.
Undercover Israeli forces shot at a car in which the Hamas member and two other men were riding, Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the troops opened fire when the car refused to stop. She said the three Palestinians "weren't armed with anything" but that troops fired because one of the men was believed to have been involved in a thwarted attempt to carry out a bombing in Israel last year.
Palestinians were quick to criticize the killing, saying it bore the hallmarks of an assassination.
In recent days, Palestinian officials and militant leaders have been discussing a possible cease-fire against Israeli targets, while Israel has begun to offer incentives -- such as Wednesday's resumption of political contacts -- in return for continued calm.
"There's a de facto period of calm, it has not been formalized, and the idea is to see Israel's reaction," said Ziad Abu Amr, a Palestinian legislator from Gaza who is a mediator between Abbas and Palestinian groups. "If Israel's reaction is positive, there's no reason the two sides can't declare a cease-fire with a clear and explicit understanding that Israel has agreed to it, even without Israel declaring a cease-fire."
Abu Amr said the relative quiet was due partly to an agreement in principle between Abbas and Hamas that leaders of the movement would join a proposed special committee "to carry out coordination and consultation between the various groups and the president of the Palestinian Authority" until legislative elections in July. Hamas and other groups that have routinely boycotted the authority's political process will run candidates, assume seats in the Palestinian parliament and officially become part of the Palestinian political system.
The committee could oversee a cease-fire agreement and Israel's proposed withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza and have input in "all outstanding issues," Abu Amr said.
Correspondent Molly Moore in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
