Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to restart peace talks, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said today.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, suspended discussions on Sunday after Israel launched its offensive in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 120 people.

Earlier today, Mr Abbas insisted that he would not return to the negotiating table until Israel declared a truce in Hamas-controlled Gaza, from where militants have been firing rockets into the country.

But after speaking to Mr Abbas by telephone, Dr Rice told a press conference in Jerusalem this afternoon that a truce was not a condition for restarting the talks on Palestinian statehood.

“I’ve been informed by the parties that they intend to resume the negotiations and that they are in contact with one another as to how to bring this about,” Dr Rice said at a news conference with Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, at the end of her two-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

After speaking to Dr Rice, President Abbas’s office issued a statement that did not repeat his earlier condition for talks.

It said Rice was exerting efforts to “enforce a mutual calm” and Abbas’s intention was to “resume the peace process and negotiations”.

No date was set a date for the resumption of talks, which the United States hopes can result in an agreement before President Bush leaves office in January.

But Dr Rice said that a tripartite US-Israeli-Palestinian committee would meet next week to examine how far each side is meeting its commitments under the long-stalled “road map” to peace.

She added that David Welch, the US assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, will be despatched to Cairo to aid negotiations.

Medical workers have said about half of the Palestinian dead as as a result of the Israel’s five-day offensive in Gaza, which ended on Monday, were civilians.

Israel has threatened to send troops back into the territory, which Hamas Islamists seized from Mr Abbas’s secular Fatah faction in June, if rocket attacks continue.

But Olmert told reporters today after meeting Rice: “One thing should be clear: If there is no Qassam (rocket) fire on Israel, there will be no Israeli attack on Gaza. We do not rise in the morning and think about how to attack Gaza.”

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