Closing ranks against Hamas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has invited the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders to a peace summit next week, Palestinian and Israeli officials said yesterday.

The regional gathering is the biggest show of support yet by moderate Arab states for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in his bitter showdown with the Islamic militants, who seized control of Gaza last week.

But it will also highlight the highly difficult situation would-be peacemakers face now that Hamas is in charge of Gaza. The takeover has created a two-headed Palestine, with Hamas in charge of Gaza and Abbas' Fatah in charge of the West Bank, and that's sure to complicate efforts to forge a peace deal that would establish a Palestinian state.

Ahead of the gathering, Abbas lined up backing from another quarter when the Palestine Liberation Organization endorsed his decision to expel Hamas from his government and form an emergency Cabinet.

Abbas aides Saeb Erekat and Yasser Abed Rabbo first announced Mubarak's invitation to host the Palestinian president, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Jordan's King Abdullah II early next week. Olmert spokeswoman Miri Eisin later said it would be held on Monday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, and Jordan confirmed that Abdullah would attend.

Abbas will call for a resumption of peace talks with Israel, arguing that only progress toward Palestinian statehood can serve as a true buffer against Hamas, Erekat said.

"The most important thing to realize is that time is of the essence," Erekat said. "We need to deliver the end of occupation, a Palestinian state. If we don't have hope, Hamas will export despair to the people."

Eisin said the four would "address ways to promote the moderate agenda and ways to go forward on the Israeli-Palestinian issues."

As immediate steps, Abbas will ask Israel to remove West Bank checkpoints that disrupt daily life and trade, and to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian tax funds Israel froze after Hamas came to power last year.

In Washington this week, Olmert said he would propose to his Cabinet on Sunday that it unlock frozen funds. Israel is holding about US$550 million in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians.

Yesterday, PLO leaders meeting in the West Bank threw their full support behind Abbas' decisions to dissolve the Hamas-led government and form a new, Fatah-led Cabinet.

Hamas is not a member of the PLO, which is dominated by Abbas' Fatah movement and chaired by the Palestinian president. Although largely inactive in recent years, the PLO considers itself the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and can bestow legitimacy or take it away.

(China Daily via agencies June 22, 2007)