Condoleezza Rice will offer to help Palestinian leaders end anti-Israeli militant attacks yesterday on the first visit in three years of a US secretary of state to the seat of the Palestinian Authority. Rice proposed to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday a ?security mechanism? that she indicated would involve the United States monitoring a ceasefire accord, which the parties may clinch at landmark summit this week.

The top US diplomat will meet President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah ? the headquarters of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and a symbol of Palestinian resistance in a 4-year-old uprising that many hope could end with the sides? renewed peace push. Rice wants to help Palestinians build democratic institutions from Ramallah, where Arafat was confined until close to his death in his high-walled compound that was half-destroyed in 2002 by a series of Israeli raids.

Rice praised a new Palestinian leadership that has ?expressed its desire for a peaceful future with Israel.? On the West Bank, she will detail President George W. Bush?s pledge to boost aid for Palestinian security forces and discuss her proposal for what appears to be a resumption of coordinated monitoring between Washington and the sides.

?If there can be a period of calm in which there is not fighting, the most important elements will be to have some monitoring of that situation,? Rice said in an interview with CNN. ?We will discuss this with the Palestinians (yesterday),? State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters, noting Rice had outlined the plan to Sharon over dinner. He gave no details.

Israel has generally been wary of international involvement on the ground in the Palestinian territories, worried it would limit its military?s ability to respond to attacks. The last monitoring group involved the CIA but it stopped its work after three Americans were killed in 2003. Palestinian leaders have generally welcomed moves to involve the international community in resolving the conflict.

<B>Post-Arafat peacemaking</B>

Rice?s predecessor, Colin Powell, made infrequent trips to the area and was last in Ramallah in 2002. Criticised for too little involvement in Middle East peace efforts in his first term, Bush sent Rice to the region to back up his pledge to press harder for an end to the conflict. But with both sides about to embark on a new dialogue at a summit in Egypt today, Rice?s mission seemed less of an arm-twisting exercise and more of an affirmation of change after Arafat?s death in November. In Jerusalem, Rice said Israel must take hard decisions and encouraged it to press its Gaza pullout plan and not to seize lands around Jerusalem.

The Palestinians should wage ?an effective fight against terrorism,? said Rice, who will not attend the summit. The peace credentials of Arafat?s successor, Abbas, were further boosted on Sunday when his ruling Fatah movement reissued a call for a mutual ceasefire with Israel.

In a statement, the 124-member Fatah Revolutionary Council said its member militias would refrain from attacking Israeli civilians inside Israel, and would be ready for a mutual ceasefire in lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

The sides also averted a crisis on Sunday when Israel agreed to a joint committee holding talks on which prisoners would be included in 900 to be freed as a confidence-building measure.

?But with both sides about to embark on a new dialogue at a summit in Egypt today, Rice?s mission seemed less of an arm-twisting exercise and more of an affirmation of change after Arafat?s death in November.?

<B>Saul HUDSON</B>