Bilateral talks between participants in Sharm-el Sheikh summit have continued ahead of the summit, which was due to take place at (10.00 GMT).
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, will be joined by US President Bill Clinton, UN Chief Kofi Annan, Jordan’s King Abdullah and EU security Chief Javier Solana.
The summit aims at ending violence in Palestinian territories, which has killed 107 people since September 28 to enable the peace process to be relaunched
Mubarak held bilateral talks with Clinton ahead of the summit, reported AFP, adding that their conversation lasted half an hour.
The Egyptian President earlier saw Barak, and was also scheduled to meet Arafat and Jordan's King, said the agency.
"We cannot afford to fail," Annan said of what is widely seen as a last-ditch bid to save nine years of peace negotiations.
But Clinton and the others say they have few illusions about the chances of success at their meeting around the table in a conference room, said the agency.
Expectations on all sides after two weeks of clashes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab towns in Israel, were low and Egyptian presidential palace sources said the summit was scheduled to last only four hours, according to Reuters.
''I can't guarantee that his summit will succeed,'' Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said late on Sunday, echoing assessments from Israeli and Palestinian leaders, said Reuters.
Last-minute wrangling over the agenda raised doubts that the summit would even take place, but the Egyptians played it down and promised a deal would be struck in time for the meeting, according to AFP.
The Israelis and Palestinians have been pressing conflicting demands that stem from their blaming each other for the violence that erupted on September 28.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Arafat would again demand an international investigation into the violence, an issue that led to the failure of an Arafat-Barak meeting with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Paris on October 4, according to Reuters.
"I honestly don't want to raise anyone's expectations and I don't have high expectations myself," Erekat said.
"I think the situation is going to be nightmarish."
According to Reuters, Israel is seeking a US-led inquiry and has voiced fears an international probe would be tantamount to what one Israeli official called a "kangaroo court."
"We don't have illusions about the summit," Albright told ABC Television's "This Week" program.
"The important point here is that we have to try to reduce the violence and take a turn back for a period of calnness so that we can (then) move back to a peace process."
Albright, who left for Egypt with Clinton aboard Air Force One, said they would first seek a truce, then ways to prevent a recurrence of the violence after studying its causes and a way back to the negotiations.
Egypt says the summit's central goal should be to make Israel withdraw troops it sent into Palestinian areas in the last two weeks, said AFP.
Pessimistic notes were sounded on the eve of the summit, with Barak doubting that the "current Palestinian leadership" could decide on an agreement.
In Gaza City, the political head of the fundamentalist Hamas Islamic resistance, Ismael Abu Shanab, blasted the summit as "totally useless" and warned that the Palestinian uprising would continue regardless, said the agency.
Demonstrations against the summit were also staged in the West Bank, Lebanon and Egypt.
The violence has been blamed for a surge in world oil prices and sparked protests for one side or the other in cities across Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States.
"This is an urgent and major crisis for us all," Annan said.
The violence has claimed the lives of 107 people and wounded 3,000 others, the vast majority of casualties being Palestinians, said the agency.
It started on September 28th after Israel's hawkish opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, at the heart of the two sides' competing claims to the holy city as their capital.
Sharm el-Sheikh has hosted previous summits, including one in September 1999 that rescued the peace process from the stalemate that occurred under Barak's predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Egypt plays a pivotal role in the peace process as the first Arab country to have made peace with Israel, in 1979 - (Several Sources)
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