Israel, Palestinians seek to ease tensions

Aides to Palestinian security chief Mohammad Dahlan said the two sides were to hold new security talks Friday or Sunday. Dahlan and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met late Thursday for talks they called "positive."

Israel made a small gesture Friday in freeing scores of Palestinian prisoners whose release had been delayed. Officials were also mulling briefly lifting a siege on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat so he could join mourning for his late sister.

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The moves came amid mounting fears of a new spiral of bloodshed after a local commander of the radical group Islamic Jihad was killed Thursday by Israeli forces in the southern West Bank City of Hebron.

Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the death, which came just two days after two Palestinian suicide bombings killed two Israelis in reprisal for a bloody Israeli army raid last Friday on the northern West Bank town of Nablus.

The round of attacks threatened a precarious truce which had dramatically reduced the death toll since it was declared by Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups on June 29.

It also brought to a virtual standstill efforts to advance on Washington's "roadmap" for peace aimed at ending the nearly three-year-old conflict and establishing a Palestinian state by 2005.