"We have a lot of patience, because we want to give peace a chance," a senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity. Besides, he said, if Abbas fails, "who is the alternative? We don't have one."
Abbas, speaking to reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said "there is a third party that wants to sabotage this process." He referred to the perpetrators of the Tel Aviv attack as "terrorists," a term Palestinians rarely use to describe other Palestinians.
An Israeli security guard examines debris at the site of a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub that killed four.
(Brennan Linsley -- AP)
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"This act harms our interests, our path and our goals, and we will not hesitate for a minute to track them down, bring them to justice and punish them," Abbas said.
In Washington, a statement issued by the White House said President Bush "condemns in the strongest possible terms the vicious act of terrorism in Tel Aviv. . . . We have been in touch with the Palestinian leadership to urge immediate and credible action by Palestinian security authorities, in cooperation with the government of Israel, to determine who is behind this terrorist act and to bring them to justice."
Key Palestinian factions that have been the main sponsors of suicide attacks against Israel have said they were not bound by the declaration Abbas made at his summit with Sharon but that they were nevertheless observing a period of quiet.
Nasser Jumma, a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank city of Nablus, said that even if all of the main militant groups agreed to a cease-fire, a lone bomber or militant cell still could stage an attack. Such operations, he said, will only stop when Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"If you want a complete end to these kinds of operations and stop individuals from acting on their own, the Israelis should give the Palestinian side, which has shown seriousness in putting an end to the violence, control on the ground," Jumma said.
Correspondent Scott Wilson in Beirut and special correspondent Sufian Taha in the West Bank contributed to this report.
