Middle East talks fail

Gaza - Palestinian and Israeli negotiators failed yesterday after more than six hours of talks to break a deadlock holding up…

Gaza - Palestinian and Israeli negotiators failed yesterday after more than six hours of talks to break a deadlock holding up the nearly 10-month-old Wye River land-for-security peace deal.

"We still have our differences on the timeframe and on issues of substance as related to the Wye memorandum," the Palestinian negotiator, Mr Saeb Erekat, said at the end of the meeting in the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip.

Mr Erekat said an Israeli-Palestinian team dealing with the release of Palestinian prisoners under the Wye accord had met and would meet again today and tomorrow.

While the sides met in Gaza, Palestinian police in the divided West Bank city of Hebron arrested 100 members of the militant Islamic Hamas group after a warehouse explosion that officials said was caused by militants preparing a car bomb.