Hopes for an end to four years of bloodshed

Date: 10/02/05

Contact between Israeli and Palestinian leaders resumed this week with Ariel Sharon (second from left) meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (left), Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (second from right) and King Abdullah II of Jordan in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on Tuesday. After a four-year long Intifada and numerous Israeli military strikes on the occupied territories, both sides agreed to a truce. "In my meeting with Chairman Abbas, we agreed that all Palestinians will stop all acts of violence against all Israelis everywhere and, at the same time, Israel will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians everywhere," Sharon said at the end of talks. Sharon also pledged that Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza would be part of the EU- and US-sponsored Road Map. Egypt and Jordan announced that they would return their ambassadors to Tel Aviv although no date was given.

Contact between Israeli and Palestinian leaders have resumed with Ariel Sharon meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II of Jordan in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on 8 February 2005.