The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaves Monday on a new mission to the Middle East as fresh violence between Israel and Hamas militants has placed the teetering peace process in peril. She faces an uphill task. After an Israeli incursion into Gaza on Saturday, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the Middle East peace talks revived in November in the US town of Annapolis had now been destroyed. "The negotiations are buried under the houses that were destroyed in Gaza," Erakat said. "The peace process has been destroyed because of the aggressions and the crimes that have been committed." A member of the office of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas told AFP the talks were now suspended. "The president decided to suspend the negotiations as a protest to the Israeli aggression," he said, declining to be named. Rice is expected to arrive in Cairo on Tuesday for talks with Egyptian leaders on the situation in the Gaza Strip which has been under an Israeli land and air blitz in a bid to stop rocket fire into Israel.