Security sources said Israel had agreed to curb its "track-and-kill" operations against Palestinian militants in a deal struck with US officials seeking to prop up a peace "road map" imperiled by a recent wave of violence.

Militant Palestinian leaders dismissed the Israeli gesture as meaningless, underlining the difficulties Secretary of State Colin Powell will face on a trouble-shooting mission to the region on Friday.

Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in a speech on Wednesday: "Moving forward (on the road map) requires a complete cessation of violence, terrorism and incitement."

Abbas held his first direct talks with the radical Islamic group Hamas since it broke off contacts with him after a US-led June 4 summit, accusing him of being too conciliatory toward Israel.

Participants at the Gaza meeting said Abbas, a leading moderate, made progress in mending relations with Hamas leaders but made little headway in his effort to convince them to call a cease-fire with Israel.

After three hours of talks, senior Hamas official Ismail abu Shanab sounded a note of defiance, saying: "If there is (Israeli) occupation, there will be resistance."

Despite that, Hamas officials said they had agreed to further dialogue, though no date was set. They said they would continue internal discussions before presenting a formal response to Abbas, but gave no sign they were ready to budge.

After meeting Hamas, Abbas held direct talks with Islamic Jihad that ended with no apparent change in the militant group's refusal to end attacks.

SUICIDE ATTACKS

The Muslim fundamentalist groups, main sponsors of suicide bombings during a 32-month-old uprising for Palestinian statehood, are dedicated not only to driving Israeli forces out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but also to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Hamas, the larger of the two, is considered the linchpin of any cease-fire.

Sharon sanctioned a helicopter missile strike on Hamas political leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi on June 10. Rantissi survived, but the assassination attempt engulfed US-led peacemaking in turmoil.

Hamas responded by killing 17 Jerusalem bus passengers in a suicide bombing. Israel followed with further air attacks that killed some wanted Hamas members but also bystanders, prompting US calls for Israeli restraint.

Talks between Abbas and 13 militant groups broke up inconclusively on Tuesday, and moments later Palestinian gunmen killed a young Israeli girl in a car near the West Bank.

But on Wednesday security sources said Israeli officials had agreed at a White House meeting that only militants seen as imminent attack threats, and not top political figures, would be targeted henceforth.

"We have undertaken to limit our track-and-kill operations to terrorists who are definitely 'ticking bombs'," one security source told Reuters.

The road map -- drawn up by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- envisages a Palestinian state by 2005 after a freeze on Jewish settlement building and a Palestinian crackdown on militants committed to destroying Israel.

(China Daily June 19, 2003)