Abbas demands peace after killings

By Ali Sawafta

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Saturday for talks with Israel despite a surge of violence and said that a just peace was his people's goal.

"We condemn all the attacks, we demand peace and we are determined to make peace, and there is no other path but the path of peace based on international justice," Abbas told a rally at his headquarters.

A Palestinian gunman killed eight Jewish seminary students on Thursday, the bloodiest attack in Israel in two years. Hamas, which had vowed to avenge the more than 125 Palestinians killed in a recent Gaza offensive by Israel, claimed responsibility.

Israeli investigators were questioning eight people in connection with the attack, seeking to establish whether the gunman, who was killed, had acted alone or was connected to any militant group, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

The shootings in Jerusalem triggered calls by Israeli right-wingers to scrap U.S.-sponsored talks with Abbas.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a women's conference near Tel Aviv on Saturday night that there was no difference between the shooting attack and Gaza militant rocket fire at southern Israel, and said Israel would curb the rocket strikes.

"There is a direct connection between the rockets which disrupt the lives of the residents of the south and the attack in Jerusalem, both were intended by their perpetrators to make our lives here intolerable. It will not happen," Olmert said.

He added that Israel was preparing to implement government decisions taken last week to "achieve the deterrent" to stop the rocket fire, but he did not elaborate.