(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-03-05 00:01

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared Tuesday that peace is his first choice in the Mideast and visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice exhorted Israel to "spare innocent life" in the latest upsurge in fighting in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left, and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, right, wave to the press prior to meeting President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Tuesday March 4, 2008. [Agencies]

"I call on the Israeli government to halt its aggression so the necessary environment can be created to make negotiations succeed, for us and for them, to reach the shores of peace in 2008," Abbas said. He was referring to the goal -- stated at a US-sponsored Mideast peace conference in November -- of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty by the end of the year.

Abbas made his comments in a joint news conference here with Rice.

For her part, Rice said: "I know that there is great will to try and get to a solution by the end of the year. What we are trying to achieve is not easy ... but I do believe it can be done. We need very much for everybody to be focused on peace," she added.

Referring to the opponents of peace, she said, "We won't let them win." Rice also said that Israel should make "a very strong effort to spare innocent life" in Gaza.

Earlier, the US official said that walking away from talks plays into the hands of militants, and Rice blamed Palestinian Hamas radicals for provoking an Israeli military onslaught in the Gaza Strip. The campaign has derailed an already troubled US-backed drive for peace terms this year.

"Negotiations are going to have to be able to withstand the efforts of rejectionists to upset them, to create chaos and violence, so that people react by deciding not to negotiate, " Rice said in Egypt at the start of two days of efforts to rescue negotiations. "That's the game of those who don't want to see a Palestinian state established."

The moderate, US-backed Palestinian leadership in the West Bank suspended peace talks in protest after an Israeli military offensive that killed more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza. That made restoring two-way talks Rice's chief objective for a trip she had planned to check up on the negotiators' progress.

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