Jerusalem ? Israeli and Palestinian officials are working to set up a meeting between their prime ministers this week aimed at renewing peace efforts, the chief Palestinian negotiator said Saturday.

Officials have been trying for several weeks to arrange a summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Qureia. The meeting would be the first such high-level encounter in months.

Both sides have expressed a desire to meet to rejuvenate efforts to implement the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan, which envisions an immediate end to violence and the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

On Thursday, Sharon said that if the Palestinians did not make serious peace moves in the next few months, Israel would impose its own boundary on them. Palestinians say only a negotiated agreement can bring peace, worried unilateral Israeli action would leave them with far less land than they want for a future state.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Saturday he and other Palestinian officials planned to meet in the next two days with Dov Weisglass, the chief of Sharon’s office, to prepare for the summit, the first between the two leaders since Qureia took office in October.

A senior Israeli official, who declined to be identified, said the date and location of the meeting between the prime ministers would become clearer soon but that “one can expect a meeting during (the) week.”

Qureia has said he would only agree to the meeting if Sharon showed a willingness to compromise on a series of contentious issues, including the construction of a security barrier that dips deep into the West Bank.

Sharon has refused to stop building the barrier, but has said Israel planned to ease closures, curfews and other restrictions on Palestinians.

Violence in the West Bank continued Saturday as Palestinian gunmen killed a man accused of collaborating with Israeli security forces. The 23-year-old man was shot in the head at close range in the town of Qalqiliya, emergency services officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A boy lights ceremonial candles along a ledge in the outside wall of the shrine built over what Christians believe to be Jesus' empty tomb, inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem's Old City. The numbers of religious visitors who come to Jerusalem for Christmas are a fraction of what they were before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict flared up more than three years ago.