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Bush Opens Tour With Call to Act
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But events on the ground Wednesday underscored the great obstacles ahead: Palestinians in the Gaza Strip -- governed by the armed Hamas movement, which is not participating in the talks -- fired 20 rockets and mortar shells into Israel, causing no major injuries. Three Palestinians in Gaza were killed in Israeli strikes, while the Israeli army launched ground attacks to pursue what it said were gunmen responsible for rocket attacks.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers in the West Bank constructed at least two new settlement outposts and expanded others in response to Bush's visit, according to Daniella Weiss, a veteran leader of the settlement movement.
Asked about such outposts at the news conference, Bush said that "they ought to go," but did not indicate what kind of pressure he would bring toward that end. He also said he would press Abbas at a meeting Thursday to curb the rocket attacks, even though they are launched from Gaza, a territory that the Palestinian Authority, headed by Abbas, does not control.
"I believe that he knows it's not in his interests to have people launching rockets from a part of the territory into Israel," Bush said.
Asked later how Bush expected Abbas to control the rockets, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley acknowledged that Abbas does not control those behind the attacks, but added, "There's obviously communication he has with people of Gaza, and messages that he can send to the people who are doing those rockets."
Olmert said there would be no peace deal without an end to such attacks. "We made it clear to the Palestinians," he said. "They understand that Gaza must be a part of the package, and that as long as there will be terror from Gaza it will be very, very hard to reach any peaceful understanding between us and the Palestinians."
Correspondent Jonathan Finer contributed to this report.
