WASHINGTON (AFP)---US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began talks Tuesday with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, the first in a flurry of contacts with key players in the runup to new direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.   

A cloud immediately loomed over the talks as four Israelis were shot dead by Palestinians Tuesday near Kyriat Arba, in the West Bank.

Clinton and Abbas, flanked by top aides, smiled for the cameras as they sat together on the eve of a high-profile White House dinner US President Barack Obama will have with Abbas, Netanyahu and other Middle East players.   

Neither gave public remarks about the hard work at hand as the chief US diplomat prepared to host the Palestinian and Israeli leaders on Thursday for the first direct peace talks since December 2008.   

Both Abbas and Netanyahu have both spoken of their willingness to compromise.

The meeting with Abbas was the first of Clinton's six scheduled meetings Tuesday.   

Then she will meet successively with the Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit, former US president Jimmy Carter, and the representative for the Middle East quartet Tony Blair.   

The day will end with face-to-face talks with Netanyahu at 19:45 pm (2345 GMT), just ahead of Obama's Oval Office address to the nation to discuss the end of US combat operations in Iraq.   

Netanyahu said he hoped to reach "a peace based on recognition, security, stability and economic prosperity between the two peoples that will endure for us and our children."   

But he also tried to reassure his Likud party in Israel's ruling coalition he would not bow to territorial concessions in peace talks with the Palestinians.
   

"You don't need to worry. Nobody needs to teach me what it is to love Eretz Israel," he told Likud members, using a biblical term for the Land of Israel, at a meeting to prepare for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year which starts on September 8.      

The Israeli government has ordered a 10-month partial moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank that expires on September 26, with most Likud members opposed to an extension.   

"The government of Israel wants to progress on the path to peace... We want
a real peace, for generations to come, and only the Likud government can bring
about this peace," said the premier who heads a centre-right coalition.

Israeli President Shimon Peres insisted on Tuesday that Netanyahu was headed to the United States "aware of the greatness of his mission, and I think he is well prepared to meet the chance."   

But he said any future Palestinian state must be demilitarized.   

Netanyahu was "determined to represent his people to implement a widely agreed solution here, namely to have a two-state solution, a Palestinian demilitarized, united, democratic country on the side of Israel," Peres said.   

"All other solutions are dangerous," he told participants at a World Jewish Congress gathering in Jerusalem.   

According to Israeli media, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak secretly met on Sunday with Abbas in Amman, in a meeting sponsored by Jordan's King Abdullah II.   

Abdullah along with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be among the leaders attending the White House dinner.