MAHMOUD ABBAS, the Palestinian President, met Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, yesterday in the first high-level contact between the two sides since Hamas, the Islamist group, won the Palestinian elections in January.

The meeting, in Egypt, came amid increased tensions in Gaza, where assassination attempts on two Palestinian security officials prompted Mr Abbas to warn against civil war between his secular Fatah and its Islamist rival.

The tensions were an unsettling backdrop for Ehud Olmert’s departure last night for Washington and the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister’s first meeting with President Bush.

Mr Abbas said that he would begin talks with Hamas this week. “We have to look for a solution,” he said, warning that civil war was “a red line that nobody dares cross, no matter which side they are on”.

After their 45-minute meeting at the World Economic Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Ms Livni maintained Israel’s stance that the new Hamas Government must not be given international recognition. But she confirmed that her Government would use $11 million (£6 million) of Palestinian taxes to send medical supplies into the Palestinian Territories. The money is part of $220 million collected by Israel for the Palestinian Authority, but withheld since Hamas’s victory.

The measure came after intense European pressure to ease the humanitarian situation in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians are facing increasing hardship after two months during which civil servants’ salaries have been unpaid and Israel has enforced border closures. Confirming that the supplies would be transferred direct to Palestinian hospitals, Ms Livni said that it was “the Israeli government policy not to punish the Palestinian people for their vote”.

Israeli officials have indicated that the Jewish state is content to provide supplies in kind, but not money for salaries, which could be diverted to weapons or stolen by Palestinian Authority officials.

One official escaped an assassination attempt yesterday after Palestinian forces found a roadside bomb apparently intended to kill Rashid Abu Shbak, a senior security chief loyal to Mr Abbas’s Fatah faction. The bomb was discovered 24 hours after Tareq Abu Rajab, the Palestinian intelligence chief and another of Mr Abbas’s security officials, was seriously wounded by a bomb.

Tension between victorious Hamas and defeated Fatah have flared into violence in recent weeks, especially in the Islamist group’s Gaza stronghold. Hamas controls the Palestinian Parliament but Mr Abbas remains the figurehead President, with both sides vying for control of the security forces. Mr Olmert, meanwhile, is intent on pushing through his plan to separate from the Palestinians by completing the West Bank barrier.

However, his centrist Government has been working hard to lower expectations of progress after weeks in which it was hoped that he would gain White House blessing for his controversial plan to secure Israel’s hold on its largest West Bank settlements in return for withdrawing from others.

But a weakened Mr Bush is unlikely to anger Europe and the Arab world by agreeing to the de facto annexation of part of the West Bank. So Mr Olmert’s visit will focus on Iran.

Speaking to CNN before leaving Israel, Mr Olmert gave a warning that Tehran was “months rather than years” away from becoming a nuclear threat. “This technological threshold is nearer than we anticipated before. This is because they are already engaged very seriously in enrichment,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Gaza City yesterday, thousands of mourners attended funerals for four victims of an Israeli airstrike on Saturday against a leading Gaza Strip militant Many mourners demanded revenge attacks after the death of Naima Amen, Hanan Amen, her daughter, and her grandson, Mohanad, 4, as well as Mohammed Dahduh, the local Islamic Jihad commander who was the target of the raid.

The crowds who turned up for the funerals included not only Jihad followers but loyalists of Hamas and al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades — a brief show of unity from the two factions who have been involved in recent deadly clashes.

Israel said that Dahduh had been responsible for firing rockets at Israel from Gaza.

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