Agencies

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday ruled out resuming peace talks with Israel unless it stops settlement building and insisted on the Palestinians' right to "legitimate resistance". Abbas made the comments during the inaugural meeting of the new 23-member Central Committee his Fateh Party elected during its first convention in two decades.

He said negotiations with Israel would only resume "on the basis of commitments made by both sides ... particularly a halt to all forms of settlement activity without exception in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories". The US-backed leader welcomed "the efforts of President Barack Obama and his insistence on the need to create a Palestinian state and to totally halt settlement activity". Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has risked a rift with Washington by refusing to heed calls to freeze building of settlements, which the international community considers illegal and a major hurdle in Middle East peace efforts.

Earlier, the head of a delegation of US Democratic members of Congress blamed the Palestinians for failing to hold talks with Israel, calling it the "largest thing" impeding the peace process.

"I think the largest thing impeding the negotiations at this point is simply the unwillingness of Abbas to sit down [with the Israelis]," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters in Jerusalem.

Abbas also stressed that while the Palestinians remain committed to peace, they also "reserve the right to use legitimate resistance, guaranteed under international law" against the Israeli occupation.

A resolution with a similar wording was adopted during the Fateh congress, which opened August 4 and was due to formally conclude after officials announce later Thursday or Friday election results for its 120-member Revolutionary Council.

Abbas hailed the gathering as "a huge success". "This congress marks the beginning of a reform and renewal process within Fateh," said Abbas, who was confirmed as party leader during the congress in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem.

The 2,000 delegates renewed Fateh's Central Committee in an election seen as an injection of fresh blood that could revive the Palestinian party founded by the iconic leader Yasser Arafat half a century ago to pursue independence, a movement that has lost much of its clout in recent years.

Marwan Barghouthi, a popular resistance leader, was among those elected to the Central Committee, even though he is serving five life sentences in Israel for his role in deadly attacks.

Top Palestinian negotiator and former prime minister Ahmed Qureia, who lost his seat on the committee, claimed "interventions" sullied the balloting.

He told the London-based Al Quds Al Arabi newspaper he formally complained to the Fateh leadership "not only against the results but also against the entire process of elections". The daily also cited Qureia - who served as chief negotiator during the Annapolis peace talks in 2007 and 2008 - as saying he no longer believes a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict is realistic.

"Such a solution is quasi-impossible. How can there be a state whose borders are not defined, whose territory is cut up by settlements," he said.

The talks he chaired were launched under US sponsorship in November 2007 but the Palestinians suspended the process during Israel's war on the Hamas movement in Gaza at the turn of the year.

Abbas played down the criticism and ruled out any break-up of the party.

Syria-US talks

A US envoy and Syria's foreign minister met Thursday as part of American efforts to achieve a "permanent and comprehensive peace in the region", a US embassy official said.

Fred Hof, an assistant to George Mitchell, a former Senate Democratic leader who oversees US Mideast peace-making efforts, met Walid Mouallem shortly before ending a two-day visit to Damascus, the official said.

The embassy official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. Syrian officials did not comment on Hof's visit.

It was Hof's second visit to Syria in less than a month and comes as President Barack Obama's administration prepares to present a Mideast peace plan in a few weeks.

The talks are part of an acceleration of US engagement with the Arab world and US hopes that Syria can play a constructive role.

Syria is seen as a major player in this process because of its support for Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and its intermittent peace talks with Israel over the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau that was captured by Israel in 1967.

Hof's visit, which included many military personnel, was also designed to address Syria's efforts to help stabilise Iraq, a State Department spokesman said before the trip.

The US has long complained that Syria has allowed insurgents to cross its border into Iraq.

Jeffrey D. Feltman, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and National Security Council official Daniel Shapiro both have visited Damascus at least twice this year as part of talks aimed at improving US relations with Syria.

Hof has been mentioned as a possible nominee for US ambassador to Damascus. The post has been vacant for four years.

War crimes

Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed 11 Palestinian civilians, including four children, who were in groups waving white flags during the Gaza war, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.

"The Israeli military should conduct thorough, credible investigations into these deaths to tackle the prevailing culture of impunity," the New York-based organisation said in a 63-page report.

It said the 11 people were only small fraction of the total number of civilians and combatants killed in the December-January Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"However, these deaths stand out because the civilians were in groups waving a white cloth, T-shirt or scarf, and no Palestinian fighters were in the area at the time," HRW said.

"Under the laws of war, individuals who carry out or order deliberate attacks on civilians are responsible for war crimes." In one of the cases mentioned, two women and three children were standing in front of their home after a soldier ordered them outside.

At least three of them were holding pieces of white cloth when a soldier opened fire, killing two girls aged two and seven and wounding the third girl and their grandmother.

"We spent seven to nine minutes waving the flags, and our faces were looking at them," the grandmother, who was shot twice, was quoted as saying. "And suddenly they opened fire and the girls fell to the ground." In five of the seven incidents detailed in the report, Israeli soldiers shot at civilians who were walking down the street with white flags, trying to leave areas of fighting.

The military said last month it was investigating incidents in which soldiers allegedly killed civilians holding white flags, but HRW charged: "Israel's poor record on investigations makes objective probes unlikely.

"Field investigations typically consist of asking soldiers to question other soldiers, without seeking or considering testimony from external witnesses, and taking exculpatory claims of soldiers at face value," the group said of Israeli military investigations.

The Israeli military is conducting 15 criminal probes into troop conduct during the three-week offensive, including allegations that children were used as human shields.

Israel has said that so far evidence shows troops "pursued legitimate objectives with appropriate precautions", while Hamas committed "grave violations of international law". Earlier this month, HRW published another report on the Gaza war in which it said rocket attacks carried out against Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian groups amounted to war crimes.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza war, according to Palestinian figures. On the Israeli side 10 soldiers and three civilians were killed either in battle, by friendly fire or by rocket attacks.