BEIRUT/GAZA, 26 March — Arab foreign ministers and other top diplomats met here yesterday to prepare for the Arab summit beginning tomorrow, calling for a just peace to avoid confrontations with Israel that could have “unforeseen results” as the United States publicly prodded Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to lift a travel ban on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and allow him to attend the summit.

Speaking at the opening session, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said the Arab summit, which will end on Thursday, was being held “amid a delicate regional and international situation.”

“We can either have justice and development, or great chaos and confrontations that could escalate and lead to unforeseen results,” he said.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammoud said, “We have opted for the choice of legitimate resistance and for a just and comprehensive peace.”

“We want peace, not surrender,” he said, accusing “the Israeli side of failing to present any peaceful initiative.”

The foreign ministers settled the agenda for the summit. Arab diplomats said some 50 draft resolutions were listed, dealing in particular with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as US threats against Iraq and Baghdad’s relations with neighboring Kuwait.

As well as their formal session on the agenda, ministers devoted two informal meetings to the initiative of Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, offering what one official called a “collective peace treaty” with Israel in exchange for the return of Arab lands occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.

But Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, the summit host, rejected any settlement that would prevent the return of some 3.7 million Palestinian refugees to the homes they fled on the creation of Israel in 1948.

Earlier, the ministers talked by telephone with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. After the formal meeting opened, the Arab summit’s spokesman, Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh, said “the presence of Arafat among us is important, but not on the basis of making concessions to the (Israeli) government.”

In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said US President George W. Bush believed it was time for Arab nations “to seize the moment” and support a Saudi-inspired land-for-peace deal with Israel that will be debated at the Beirut meeting.

“The president believes that Premier Sharon and the Israeli government should give serious consideration to allowing Arafat to attend the meeting in Beirut,” Fleischer said.

Some Palestinian factions, meanwhile, urged Arab leaders not to endorse the Saudi proposal.

The factions represent the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The heads of state of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will stay away from the Arab summit and instead send senior delegates, officials announced yesterday.

In Jerusalem, a senior Israeli security official told AFP yesterday the Palestinians have canceled a crucial fifth round of joint security talks due later in the evening, which are aimed at reaching a cease-fire. Palestinians say the talks were not slated.

Meanwhile, four Israeli tanks and an army bulldozer moved into Palestinian-run territory east of the self-rule West Bank town of Bethlehem yesterday, triggering firefights, Palestinian security officials said.

In the southern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian man was shot dead during an Israeli military incursion into Rafah, Palestinian security sources said.

A Palestinian man died yesterday afternoon in an explosion in the Nusseriat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians said.

A Palestinian minister told Egyptian radio yesterday Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will not attend tomorrow’s Arab summit in Beirut without “international guarantees” that he can return home.

The Washington Post reported yesterday Israeli military planners are preparing for a major assault on Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps if talks fail.

In another development, Sharon yesterday outlined a three-stage approach for peace in the region, while also saying he was seeking to expand the base of his coalition government.