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Story Highlights
1) Israeli, Palestinian officials are starting to draft elements for a proposed peace deal
2) Decision does not necessarily reflect agreement on major issues, official says
3) Announcement comes amid violence in Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have agreed to start drafting elements of a proposed peace accord, the chief Palestinian negotiator said Friday.Ahmed Qureia, the veteran negotiator heading the Palestinian team, made it clear the decision did not necessarily reflect agreement on major issues. But this would be the first time since negotiations resumed more than six months ago that anything would be committed to paper.
"We agreed with the Israelis to begin writing the positions," Qureia told reporters late Friday.
Israeli government officials would not comment and Qureia did not explain why the two sides had agreed at this point to begin drafting a text.
However, the timing coincides with a corruption scandal in Israel that threatens to unseat Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Should Israel find itself going to early elections, polls show Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposes major territorial concessions to the Palestinians, becoming Israel's next premier. However, drafting during previous rounds of peace talks has not always meant that those positions were then preserved for future negotiators.
Qureia did not say what issue the two sides would start with. If they reach agreement on any issue, then they will draft a single provision, he said. If not, they will lay out on paper their divergent views, he addedIsrael and the Palestinians resumed peace talks in late November under U.S. prodding. Continued Israeli settlement construction and Israeli security concerns have clouded negotiations, and both sides have expressed doubt about achieving the declared goal of clinching a final accord by the end of the year.
Qureia confirmed that Israeli peace negotiators have offered the Palestinians land in exchange for territory where major West Bank settlements lie, but he termed their offer "unacceptable."
Palestinians would like to incorporate all of the West Bank into a future state, but their moderate president, Mahmoud Abbas, has acknowledged that Israel, with U.S. backing, likely will hold on to blocs where tens of thousands of settlers live. In exchange, Abbas is prepared to relinquish some West Bank land for an equal amount of Israeli land.
Qureia would not say how much territory Israel offered, where it is located or how much West Bank land the Jewish state proposed to keep under a final peace accord with the Palestinians.
"The Israelis presented a land swap offer, but this offer is unacceptable to us," he said.
Other Palestinian officials have said Israel has presented maps giving it 10 percent of the West Bank in exchange for southern Israeli territory near the Gaza Strip.
Early Friday, one Palestinian militant was killed and two were injured in a gunbattle that erupted after Israeli tanks and bulldozers crossed into central Gaza. The military said its forces entered to prevent rocket launches.
Fifteen Palestinians -- some Hamas militants, others civilians -- were wounded in a second aerial attack on a Hamas base in northern Gaza later Friday, doctors said. The missiles destroyed a building, witnesses said.
Hamas also fired four rockets toward Israel, the group said. One landed in the rocket-scarred town of Sderot, damaging six cars, the military said.
The latest flare-up in violence began Thursday when a Hamas mortar killed an Israeli and injured four others in southern Israel. Israel then sent aircraft after a rocket squad, the military said, but apparently missed their target, killing a 6-year-old Palestinian girl.
Olmert warned that Israel was close to abandoning efforts to bring a truce to the volatile area and was seriously considering a large-scale incursion.
"According to the information we have now, the pendulum is much closer to a decision on a harsh operation," Olmert said soon after returning from a brief visit to the U.S.
Egypt has been trying for months to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers.
But both sides have set tough conditions for a truce and Israeli leaders are under pressure at home to respond militarily because the weapons in the hands of Gaza militants have become more deadly.

Zimbabwe aid ban 'puts millions at risk'

Millions of people in Zimbabwe already facing economic hardship and hunger are being put at risk by a government ban on relief organizations, the United Nations warned Friday, saying it would urge a lifting of restrictions.Agostinho Zacarias, the U.N.'s top humanitarian coodinator in Zimbabwe, met senior government figures Friday to try to get the ban overturned and allow aid agencies resume providing food, clean water, medical care and other services.
"The government said they didn't take this measure to starve the people. They have their reasons. The officials we discussed this with were not prepared to advance any reasons," he said.
Zacarias said the ban was likely to affect millions of people.
He also met with church leaders to explore aid alternatives as they don't fall under the category of aid groups hit by the ban.
Bright Matonga, deputy information minister for Zimbabwe, accused several non-governmental organizations of telling people they would not receive food unless they voted for an opposition presidential candidate.
The U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee, said Zimbabwean authorities were using food as a weapon to intimidate the population and hold on to power.

McGee said people seeking food from the government are forced to give up their identity cards if they are not registered as supporters of the government, meaning they will be unable to vote.
In another development Friday, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested for the second time this week, his spokesman said.
Tsvangirai was stopped at a roadblock and taken to a police station as he was on his way to a regularly scheduled rally, his spokesman George Sibotshiwe said. He was released after 2½ hours.
"We've noticed that it's going to be a common trend in this campaign, and obviously the government and Robert Mugabe are trying to prevent [Tsvangirai] from going about his campaign freely and peacefully," Sibotshiwe said.
He said that unless the African Union deploys peacekeepers to the country, "campaigning in Zimbabwe is now virtually impossible."
"What I can convey is that since this morning we have had 10 or 11 central intelligence organization vehicles following us everywhere. There was heavy intimidation, with armed military people following us everywhere as well, and they basically pushed the president up to this roadblock before arresting him."
Sibotshiwe said there were no grounds for the arrest. "The way they work here is they don't give you any reason," he said. "Obviously, there is no charge."
The aid ban was made public Thursday, but CNN has obtained a memo dated Wednesday in which Zimbabwe's social welfare minister, Nicholas Goche, told non-governmental organizations "to suspend all field operation until further notice."
It said "a number of NGOs involved in humanitarian operations are breaching the terms and conditions of their registration."
Zimbabwe accuses international aid groups of political meddling ahead of a June 27 runoff that opposition groups say longtime President Robert Mugabe is trying to rig through intimidation.
Matonga said agencies must re-register with the government and state their purpose clearly to continue working in Zimbabwe and the government hopes that happens soon.
Kenneth Walker, a spokesman for the aid agency CARE, said Friday that the government's action has sowed confusion.
"All the NGOs are in the dark. They have no idea what this letter means. They have no idea how long it's going to last," he said.
"There's some serious concern about the impact on the millions of Zimbabweans who now won't be receiving food aid, clean water and sanitation facilities, help with agriculture Henrietta Fore, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, urged the government of Zimbabwe Thursday to "lift the suspension on all international aid agencies involved in humanitarian work in the country."
Fore said the "suspension is a direct threat to the lives and well-being of tens of thousands of innocent people in Zimbabwe."