Syria blamed Israel's Mossad intelligence service for a bombing in Damascus yesterday which a Palestinian source in Beirut said was a failed attempt to kill a Hamas member. Three people were slightly hurt in the explosion which destroyed the silver sports utility vehicle owned by the unidentified Palestinian, who escaped unhurt. The official and his daughter had left the vehicle shortly before the blast. "The entity behind it is the Mossad, collaborators with the Mossad or the Mossad in particular," Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan told Syrian Satellite Channel when asked about who was suspected to be behind the explosion that targeted what he described as a Palestinian citizen. In Jerusalem, a senior Israeli official called the accusation "nonsense". The blast came a day after Hamas and another Palestinian faction killed five Israeli soldiers in a joint attack in the Gaza Strip. Israel has vowed to retaliate for the attack. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that any peace talks with Palestinian leaders depended on whether they could rein in militants, who killed five Israeli soldiers in Gaza in an attack on Sunday. But Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said that Israel would still try to ease conditions for Palestinians so that next month's presidential vote goes smoothly. He said troops would withdraw from Palestinian cities for 72 hours. Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian officials met secretly in Jerusalem last week to discuss January's scheduled election for president of the Palestinian Authority, an Israeli television station said. It said that Dov Weisglass and Shalom Turgeman, two close aides of Sharon met Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat and Hassan Abu Libdeh, head of prime minister Ahmed Qurie's office. The men discussed a withdrawal by the Israeli army from the main Palestinian towns on the day of the election, and for Palestinian police to be authorised to carry arms for the time of the poll. A Palestinian official confirmed that the meeting had taken place. According to him, the two sides agreed to apply the same set up as during the 1996 presidential election, which enabled Palestinians in annexed east Jerusalem to take part. Both the television and the Palestinian official said the same officials were expected to meet again next week. In Kuwait City, PLO chairman Mahmud Abbas said the 14-year-old rift over Iraq's invasion of the emirate had been patched up. "The most important thing in this visit is that it has taken place and that it has resolved a situation that was disturbing all of us. Thank God, we are pleased now," Abbas told a Press conference before heading to Saudi Arabia. Abbas, leading a high-level delegation for the first such visit since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, held talks with Prime Minister Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah. Qurie said the issue of opening a Palestinian embassy in Kuwait was among many topics discussed. In Gaza, a member of the radical Palestinian faction Islamic Jihad was killed in a mysterious explosion in his house in the Khan Younis area of the southern Gaza Strip, medical sources and witnesses said. Medics at the hospital in Khan Younis named the victim as Majed Abu Salem. It was not immediately known whether the blast, which partially destroyed Abu Salem's home, had caused any other casualties. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Ramadan Shallah, head of the Islamic jihad Movement following his meeting with Palestinian interim leader Mahmoud Abbas, in Damascus on Monday, Dec. 6, 2004. (AP)