Israeli and Palestinian leaders declared a cease-fire on Tuesday at a summit in Egypt aimed at ending more than four years of bloodshed and reviving long-stalled peace talks. Militants waging an uprising since 2000, who are observing a de facto truce, said they were not bound by the agreement hailed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a new chance for the Middle East.

?The calm which will prevail in our lands starting from today is the beginning of a new era,? said Abbas at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh where Israeli and Palestinian flags flew side by side. Sharon said: ?We must all declare here today that violence will not prevail, violence will not be allowed to murder hope ... For the first time in a long time there is hope in our region for a better future for us and our grandchildren.?

Abbas said the Palestinians agreed to stop attacks on Israelis while Sharon called a halt to military operations. It was the highest-level meeting since near the start of the Palestinian ?Intifada? in September 2000. Since then, some 3,350 Palestinians and 970 Israelis have been killed. Emphasizing Washington?s new commitment to helping peace efforts, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed ?the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years.?

US and diplomatic sources in Washington told Reuters the Bush administration is considering naming an official to help coordinate Palestinian reforms but the official would stop short of being an overall peace envoy. If created, it would follow Monday?s appointment of Army Lt. Gen. William Ward to help the Palestinians reorganize competing security services and promote security cooperation with Israel. Reinforcing the sense of optimism, Egypt said both it and Jordan would return ambassadors to the Jewish state for the first time since the start of the uprising. Although no formal cease-fire was signed at the summit, it was widely seen as a step toward talks on a US-backed ?road map? for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The right to return

Israel has agreed on a series of goodwill gestures to boost peace, such as freeing 900 of 8,000 Palestinian prisoners. It would release 500 next week, its Defense Ministry said. Late on Tuesday Israel also agreed to allow 1,000 Palestinian laborers from Gaza to travel to Israel to work ?within the next few days, ? a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said.

Islamic militants behind suicide bombings and rocket attacks said they would continue to follow a de facto truce at Abbas?s behest but they were not bound by his cease-fire pledge.

?The announcement ... of a cease-fire expresses the position only of the Palestinian Authority,? said Mushir al-Masri of Hamas, which is committed to destroying Israel. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said he would take a message to Syria, where Islamic factions have offices and which is accused by Israel of fomenting violence. ?From now on, any violation of the truce will be a violation of the national commitment and will have to be dealt with as such,? Shaath said he would tell militant leaders in Damascus. Political analysts sounded a cautious note, pointing out the gap remaining on issues that led to the collapse of talks for a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war ? such as on borders and whether Palestinian refugees get a ?right to return? to land in what is now Israel. ?It is going way overboard to say this is a new beginning,? said Mouin Rabbani of the International Crisis Group. Abbas holds strongly to the Palestinian line that a state must include all the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and that refugees and their millions of descendants should have the right to return to lands in what is now Israel.

Those demands remain deal-breakers for Israel, which wants to keep major West Bank settlement blocs, sees East Jerusalem as part of its own ?indivisible capital? and categorically rules out the possibility of refugees returning to the Jewish state.

Israel says it is ready to coordinate with Abbas on its plan to withdraw settlers from occupied Gaza and part of the West Bank this year if violence stops and Palestinians rein in militants, as they are meant to under the road map.

Allyn FISHER-ILAN

DOUBTS

Can the ceasefire put an end to four years of bloodshed?

■ Israelis and Palestinians far from Tuesday?s summit in Egypt expressed doubts whether a cease-fire declared by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Mahmoud Abbas could end four years of bloodshed. ?You can try to make peace but there are always terrorists behind the scenes who want something else,? said Benita Rol, a 47-year-old Israeli, after the Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in Egypt. Palestinian militant groups behind dozens of suicide bombings in Israel said they were not bound by the pledges made to halt bloodshed but would continue to follow a de facto truce that has sharply reduced violence over the past several weeks. ?I hope (the cease-fire) will lead to quiet so that we will be able to lead normal lives. But that?s hard for me to believe,? said Rol. Palestinians, whose cities are surrounded by Israeli roadblocks and often raided by troops searching for militants, said only a full Israeli pullout from land captured in the 1967 Middle East war could bring true peace.Reflecting a lull in violence that had dominated media coverage in the Jewish state since the Intifada began in 2000, Israel Radio opened a morning broadcast with a different type of news. It said a dog bit a woman in northern Israel.