With their flags whipping in the wind, Sharon and Abbas met face-to-face at a Mideast summit Tuesday. Afterward, Abbas said: "We have agreed on halting all violent actions against Palestinians and Israelis wherever they are."

Sharon made a similar pledge: "Today, in my meeting with chairman Abbas, we agreed that all Palestinians will stop all acts of violence against all Israelis everywhere, and, at the same time, Israel will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians everywhere."

The Palestinian leader said it is time for the Palestinian people to regain their freedom.

"A new opportunity for peace is born today in the city of peace. Let's pledge to protect it," Abbas said, referring to the nickname of Sharm el-Sheik earned through past peace summits.

Sharon and Abbas smiled broadly as they leaned across a long white table to shake hands as they met for the first time since Abbas succeeded Yasser Arafat after his November death.

An invitation to both sides to meet separately with President Bush at the White House this spring added momentum on the summit's eve.

"Israel is willing to go very far and we're going to introduce today a package of confidence-building measures, incentives, to the Palestinians so that they could start this long journey on the road to peace," said Raanan Gissin, a top Sharon adviser. "But there's one thing that must be made very clear ... there will be no flexibility whatsoever, no compromise whatsoever on fighting terrorism."

Gissin said that as part of Israel's halting of military operations, it would stop its controversial targeted killing operations against wanted Palestinians, as long as the Palestinians kept militants under control. Gissin noted Israeli flags, flying outside the summit convention center alongside the flags of Arab countries, calling it a sign of more hopeful times.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the summit a "beginning" and said talks might continue in Israel as soon as Wednesday.

"We're determined to exert every possible effort to maintain this," Erekat said.

The cease-fire agreement is not a formal written document, said Gideon Meir, a senior official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Meir said that Israel will accept that in the short term the Palestinian Authority will not actively crack down on militant groups. However, in the long term, that must be done because otherwise "the Palestinian terrorist organizations will have the ability to derail the peace process, hijack the peace process," Meir said.

Possible prisoner releases also were on the agenda, but any negotiations toward a final peace deal must wait until later, Erekat said.

And a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip struck a cautionary note, saying the radical Islamic group, which has been responsible for hundreds of attacks against Israelis over the past four years, would evaluate the summit before committing itself to halting its campaign of violence.

"We agreed before with Mahmoud Abbas that if he succeeds to achieve our national goals, he should come back to the Palestinian factions to discuss the issue, and after that we will decide our stand," Mahmoud Zahar said.

Still, the verbal agreement was the clearest indication yet of momentum following Yasser Arafat's death, the election of a new Palestinian leader and a signal from the White House that it plans a renewed push for peace.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking Tuesday during a visit to Rome, said there seems to be a will for peace in the Middle East, but warned the road ahead is long.

Rice also urged the new Palestinian leadership to move resolutely to control violence against Israel by its own people. She acknowledged the limits of the Palestinian security forces, but said "there are places where they can act."

She said when the Palestinian forces arrest someone, they should hold him, when they see a bombmaking facility they should destroy it and when they see smuggling they should stop it.

In the hours before the summit began, the Israeli military said Palestinians opened fire on an Israeli military vehicle moving along the security fence surrounding the Gush Katif bloc of Jewish settlements in southern Gaza. No injuries or damage were reported. Israeli troops also arrested two Hamas members near the West Bank town of Jenin, the army said, adding that this arrest, like others in the past 10 days, was carried out with the specific approval of the army chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon.

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