AL QUDS, June 14: Israel and the Palestinians planned to resume high-level security talks on Saturday despite a week of attacks and counter-attacks in which more than 50 people have died, imperilling a US-led peace plan.

The meeting was expected to focus on Israel’s renewed offer to pull back from parts of the Gaza Strip in return for a Palestinian crackdown on militants.

Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan was to meet senior Israeli military officials on Saturday night in the first such talks since US President George W. Bush launched the peace plan at a summit last week, sources on both sides said.

But there was little cause for optimism amid vows of revenge by Palestinian militants and Israel’s pledge to wage war against them “to the bitter end”.

Hamas, the main group behind a campaign of suicide bombings against Israelis, said it would flatly reject any deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. “We will not accept a ceasefire,” Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told Reuters.

VIOLENCE: Violence flared again on Saturday. Palestinian security sources said an Israeli army patrol shot dead a 19-year-old man and wounded three other people when it fired on a crowd of stonethrowers in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus.—Reuters