Israel targets militants before summit

The operation, in which the army said 52 members of Islamic Jihad were taken into custody, was the biggest sweep against wanted militants since Abbas and Sharon declared a truce at their previous meeting on Feb. 8.

It followed an Islamic Jihad drive-by shooting that killed a Jewish settler in the West Bank on Monday and recent mortar bomb and rocket attacks by the group against Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and a town in southern Israel.

Islamic Jihad said the attacks came in response to recent Israeli raids in the West Bank against several of its men.

Israel's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip in mid-August will be high on the agenda of the first meeting between an Israeli prime minister and a Palestinian president in Jerusalem, a holy city at the centre of the Middle East dispute.

From Sharon's side, the talks will focus on steps to prevent Palestinian militants from disrupting the withdrawal and filling a potential power vacuum in Gaza afterwards. Israel says Abbas has not done enough.

"As things stand now, (Abbas's) powers have not been brought to bear in fighting terror," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israel Radio.

Abbas, whose election in January to succeed the late Yasser Arafat brought new hopes of peace, wants to be able to show militants he has won clear concessions from Israel in return for efforts to ensure calm during the pullout.