Bush, Olmert say hope remains alive for Palestinian state

Israeli soldiers took part in a drill outside Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the northern border with the Gaza Strip, yesterday. (David Buimovitch/ AFP/ Getty Images)

WASHINGTON - President Bush declared in farewell talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel yesterday that the vision of a Palestinian state remained alive, despite failure to achieve their goal of a peace deal this year.

With two months left in office, Bush said the eventual creation of a democratic Palestinian state - an objective he now leaves to President-elect Barack Obama - would help end decades of Middle East conflict.

"I believe that vision is alive and needs to be worked on," Bush told reporters as he and Olmert, who will also leave office early next year, met at the White House for their final official meeting.

The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians have acknowledged that they will not have a peace accord in place before Bush leaves the White House in January, missing a target date set at an Annapolis peace conference a year ago.

Most analysts were skeptical from the start, saying Bush's peace initiative was too little, too late, after he spent much of his two terms largely disengaged from Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.

Despite that, Olmert - who will step down under a cloud of corruption charges after a Feb. 10 parliamentary election - showered Bush with praise for setting the Annapolis process in motion and reaffirmed a two-state solution as the "only possible way" to achieve peace.

Obama, who visited Israel and the occupied West Bank in July, pledged at the time - in an apparent reference to Bush's peace efforts - not to "wait a few years into my term or my second term if I'm elected" to press for a deal.

In the Gaza Strip yesterday Israel opened border crossings, allowing in limited amounts of food and fuel for the second time in three weeks, after the United Nations warned that a humanitarian crisis is looming.

Aid groups said the one-day shipment would have minimal impact because border crossings have been closed for so long, depleting reserves of everything from flour to animal feed.

"It is just not enough," said Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

Israel agreed to allow 45 truckloads of goods to move through the Kerem Shalom crossing, including 10 for the UN relief agency, officials said. Gunness said his agency needed about 15 trucks a day.

The Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, ordered the crossings to open after a drop in the number of cross-border rockets fired by Palestinian militants in the Hamas-run territory, but he decided to close them again today after militants launched a rocket yesterday.

An Israeli police spokesman said the rocket fell short, landing inside the Gaza Strip. No militant group took responsibility, and no damage was reported.

Israel started limiting imports to the Gaza Strip on Nov. 4, when a deadly army raid into the coastal territory triggered a surge in rocket attacks.

In addition to a shortage of supplies, the Israeli measures have led to a currency crisis in Gaza. Hundreds of residents crowded into banks yesterday as they sought to withdraw money, the Associated Press reported.

Israel has refused to allow cash to enter Gaza in recent weeks to increase the pressure on Hamas. With the supply of currency dwindling, banks have limited withdrawals over the past two weeks, and some have posted signs telling customers they cannot take out any more money.

The United Nations halted cash handouts to 98,000 of Gaza's poorest residents last week, and economists and bank officials have warned that tens of thousands of civil servants won't be able to cash their paychecks next month.