(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-07 15:54

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will update his Cabinet on Sunday on his talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and their joint efforts to formulate a framework for full-fledged peace talks, a spokesman said.

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (R) shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem October 3, 2007, in this picture released by the Palestinian Press Office (PPO). Olmert will update his Cabinet on Sunday on his talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and their joint efforts to formulate a framework for full-fledged peace talks, a spokesman said. [Agencies]

The two men are trying to work out a guideline for negotiations ahead of a US-sponsored Mideast peace conference expected to take place in Annapolis, Maryland, in late November. Israeli and Palestinian teams charged with drafting the document are to meet for the first time Monday, and later in the week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to return to the region to assess progress.

At Sunday's regularly scheduled Cabinet meeting, Olmert will be "giving them feedback on what happened at the most recent meeting with Abu Mazen and update the Cabinet as well on the current situation with the Palestinians in advance of the upcoming fall meeting," Israeli government spokesman David Baker said, using Abbas' nickname.

The US has not yet set a date for the conference or announced a list of participants. Palestinian negotiators have said they expect Rice to set a date after she visits the region.

Participation by leading Arab countries is considered key to the conference's success. So far, regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries without diplomatic ties with Israel have been reluctant to commit, first seeking proof that the meeting will address the core issues of the conflict -- final borders, the status of disputed Jerusalem, Israeli settlements and a solution for Palestinian refugees who lost their homes in the 1948 war that accompanied Israel's creation.

In an interview published on Saturday, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza urged Saudi Arabia and Egypt not to attend the conference, saying he didn't expect the gathering to produce any results.

The comments by Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, marked the first time a top Hamas government official in Gaza criticized Arab nations for considering attending the conference. Hamas, as a movement, had issued a similar appeal late last month.

"We are going to appeal directly to the Arab brothers, especially the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and will ask them to reconsider any decision to participate in this conference," Haniyeh said.

The Islamic militant Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, wrested control of Gaza from Fatah security forces loyal to Abbas in mid-June. Abbas retaliated by expelling Hamas from government and setting up a Western-backed government that he says has authority over Gaza, but in practice has little influence there.

In other developments:

* Israel lifted the closure it clamped on the West Bank last week, barring Palestinians from entering Israel. The military cited concern of possible attacks during the seven-day Jewish festival of Sukkot, which ended Thursday.

* In the West Bank town of Jenin, a Palestinian civilian shot in an Israeli military raid about six weeks ago died of his wounds.

* In Gaza, Hamas security officials announced the arrest of three Fatah members who they said had planned to detonate a roadside bomb outside a Hamas security compound in the southern town of Khan Younis.

The Islamic militant group also said it defused another roadside bomb at a market in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya on a road near a Hamas security compound.