Israeli, Palestinians fail to reach accord

"The meeting (in Tel Aviv) was negative, it did not bring any results," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The Israeli side tried to push the Palestinians to fight among themselves," he added.

The two ministers will meet again next week, he said.

He regretted that Israeli officials had "again failed to stand by their commitments".

The Palestinian leadership was striving to bolster the truce, holding talks with Israeli officials and Egyptian mediators who helped persuade militants to halt their attacks.

A bout of mortar attacks in the Gaza Strip last week has put the biggest strain on the informal truce since it began in January, and prompted calls by senior Israeli army officers to delay the planned pullout of troops and Jewish settlers from the occupied territory.

However, in a speech in New York overnight, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon again stressed his commitment to his disengagement plan which he said would help ensure Jews remain a majority within the state of Israel.

In a sign that both sides were determined to prevent the truce unravelling, Mofaz and Yussuf met late Monday to discuss the recent spike in violence.

Israel's plans to transfer security responsibility for towns in the West Bank, which have been frozen since the beginning of the month, were also set to feature prominently in the talks, said a spokesman for Yussuf.

The handovers were part of a series of confidence-building measures agreed at a landmark summit in February when Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas both declared an end to more than four years of violence.

Agreement was also reached at the summit for Israel to free 900 Palestinian prisoners but an initial batch of 500 releases has yet to be followed up.

Militant groups such as Hamas, which was behind the bulk of last week's mortar attacks, have pointed to the prisoner issue to argue that Israel is not meeting its obligations.

A delegation from Egypt, which hosted talks in March when the factions formally announced the "cool-down", held talks with Abbas's dominant Fatah party in Gaza City ahead of talks with Islamist militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Tuesday.