PALESTINIAN and Israeli officials met in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh today in a bid to ease tensions between the two sides and halt a spiral of violence in the run-up to two key religious festivals.

The talks coincided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging the military’s chief of staff to contain a wave of protests within the ranks against government plans to curb the judiciary’s independence.

The Sharm el-Sheikh meeting was the second Israeli-Palestinian attempt to end a year-long surge of violence.

More than 200 Palestinians have lost their lives to Israeli gunfire and more than 40 Israelis or foreigners have been killed during the same period.

Whatever progress emerged from the previous meeting in Jordan late last month was quickly derailed.

Almost daily Israeli raids and killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, a Jewish settler rampage and retaliation by the Palestinian resistance fighters have heightened the tensions.

Mediators from neighbouring Arab countries want to ease tensions ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins this week and coincides next month with the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Palestinian official Hussein al-Sheikh tweeted that the meeting was meant to “demand an end to this continuous Israeli aggression against us.”

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the meeting.

Meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu called on chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzl Halevi to restore order in the ranks after more than 700 elite officers from the air force, special forces and the Mossad spy agency vowed to stop volunteering for duty from today.

Israel has been embroiled in a major crisis over the plans to strip powers from the judiciary, with tens of thousands of people protesting every week.

Critics say that the plans will set the country on a slide towards authoritarianism and could give Mr Netanyahu a chance to evade conviction in a trial for alleged corruption.

The prime minister said: “I expect the military chief of staff and the heads of the branches of the security services to aggressively combat the refusal to serve. There’s no place for refusal to serve in the public discourse.

“A state that wishes to exist can’t tolerate such phenomena and we will not tolerate it as well.”

The military made no immediate comment on Mr Netanyahu’s remarks.