Israel will dismantle only some of the more than 100 settlement outposts in the West Bank, Israeli officials said Monday, underscoring the difficulty Israelis and Palestinians are having in reaching agreement ahead of a summit with President Bush. The thorny disputes - over the outposts, a Palestinian crackdown on militant groups and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state - have hampered efforts to agree on a joint declaration to be released at the end of the summit. The summit Wednesday in Jordan marks the official launch of the U.S.-backed road map to Mideast peace, a plan for ending 32 months of bloody Mideast violence. The road map is a three-phase, three-year plan that envisions the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005. A senior Israeli official said Monday the Israelis and the Palestinians will make separate declarations at the summit: They could not agree on a joint declaration because the Palestinians would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians fear such a recognition would mean abandoning their call for Israel to allow 4 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to former homes in Israel, according to Palestinian officials. Israel has repeatedly said it would not recognize the so-called Palestinian "right of return," which could wipe out the Jewish majority in Israel. The Israeli official said Sharon would, however, issue a declaration Wednesday accepting the principle that a Palestinian state should be set up - a remarkable about-face for the hawkish prime minister who has spent decades fighting the Palestinians and opposing the return of land to the Arabs. Sharon told his Cabinet on Sunday he would likely also make a declaration committing Israel to dismantling settlement outposts set up in violation of Israeli law. Stopping settlement construction is a key element of the peace plan. According to the Israeli group Peace Now, there are 102 such outposts, 16 of them uninhabited. But Israeli officials said Monday they did not consider all those outposts illegal and would dismantle only ones not deemed necessary for Israeli security. Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said Israel would take down up to 10 "flagrantly illegal" outposts during the first stage of the road map, according to the Web site of the Haaretz newspaper Monday. Palestinians see the outposts on West Bank hilltops - some of them amounting to no more than an antenna position or a few families in trailers - as efforts to further expand Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and create new obstacles to a Palestinian state. Hardline Israelis defend settlement building with religious and security arguments. Meanwhile, as the summit approached, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas' government continued working to secure a cease-fire on attacks against Israelis by militant groups like Hamas. While Israel demands a crackdown, including arrest of Hamas militants, Abbas prefers to negotiate a truce. A senior Israeli official said Monday that Israel understands Abbas may need time to organize his forces and would probably accept a cease-fire for now as long as it is followed by the disarming of the militant groups. Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. officials have met in recent days to discuss the wording of the declarations in which the two sides would recognize each side's right to statehood and security. The declarations are required by the road map. In a gesture before the summit in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, Israel announced it would cancel a closure that has kept all Palestinians, including laborers, out of Israel for more than two weeks. On Sunday, it eased the restrictions slightly allowing several thousand workers to cross into Israel. In Gaza on Sunday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian they say opened fire on them near the Kissufim crossing point. In another part of Gaza, soldiers critically wounded a 17-year-old Palestinian. The Israeli military had no comment on that incident. **PHOTO CAPTION*** An Israeli Soldier guards a Palestinian detainee in a checkpoint in the West Bank town of Qalqilya Sunday June 1, 2003. Israel began easing traveling restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza ending a two-week ban for Palestinians to enter Israel. (AP Photo/ Eitan Hess-Ashkenazi)