Both sides indicated some flexibility and a willingness to keep talking. But the essential stalemate in their positions shifted the focus of diplomacy to Washington and to meetings each prime minister plans in the coming days with President Bush, again drawing Mr. Bush into coaxing and judging progress under a new peace plan.

Both sides appear to have adopted a practice of making their concessions in the presence of the Americans, to demonstrate to Washington a willingness to compromise under the plan, called the road map. Mr. Abbas is to meet with Mr. Bush on Friday, and Mr. Sharon is to see him the following Tuesday.

On July 6, the Israeli cabinet voted narrowly to release several hundred Palestinian prisoners. But Israel has not yet taken that step. Senior officials said today that Israel was unlikely to release the prisoners until after the White House meetings.

One Israeli official said a release would help not Mr. Sharon but Mr. Abbas, by giving him "goodies when he comes back from the U.S."

The peace plan does not call for the release of prisoners, but Israel says it regards that step as a good-will gesture to help Mr. Abbas, who remains unpopular among Palestinians. Israel is holding more than 5,800 Palestinian prisoners.

Both sides show signs of new flexibility on this issue. In an interview on Saturday, Mr. Abbas said he did not expect Israel to release the prisoners all at once, but in groups every couple of weeks. He proposed criteria for those to be released first that were similar to those set by Israel on July 6, including youths under 18, women and elderly men.

For their part, Israeli officials say Mr. Sharon is considering expanding his criteria to include members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Israel continues to say it will not free those with "blood on their hands," but Raanan Gissin, Mr. Sharon's spokesman, said, "There are still several thousand that don't have blood on their hands." 

But he said Israel could not begin releasing more prisoners until Mr. Abbas took action.

In the interview on Saturday, Mr. Abbas rejected the exception for those with blood on their hands, arguing that both sides committed violence. "We were in war," he said.

In today's meeting, the two sides agreed that Hisham Abdul Razeq, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, would meet soon with Avi Dichter, the chief of Israel's Shin Bet security service, to discuss Israel's criteria for releasing prisoners. Mr. Abdul Razeq is himself a former prisoner, while Mr. Dichter oversees Israel's intelligence operation, including interrogations, in the occupied territories. 

This was the fourth bilateral meeting between the prime ministers. It had been scheduled for July 9, but Mr. Abbas postponed it after Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, attacked him as having gained little in exchange for concessions to Israel. The two men have since resolved their dispute, at least temporarily.

While the last meeting between the prime ministers, on July 1, included joint statements and warm handshakes before the television cameras, this one occurred with no such fanfare. Many Palestinian officials criticized Mr. Abbas for that previous appearance, at which he stood behind a lectern decorated with a symbol of the Jewish state. They said he risked looking like an agent of Israel.

On June 29, Israel withdrew from parts of the Gaza Strip and on July 2 from most of Bethlehem in the West Bank, pulling back in accordance with the peace plan from areas that, under the 1993 Oslo accords, it had previously ceded to Palestinian control. Palestinian forces resumed responsibility for policing in those areas.

Israel has refused to withdraw from other areas, which it seized last year in response to a series of suicide bombings, until it determines that Mr. Abbas is dismantling militant groups. 

Israeli officials acknowledged that a result of that position was that most West Bank Palestinians had seen little tangible change as yet. They said Israel's defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, would consider easing some checkpoints and other restrictions on Palestinian travel through the West Bank. 

In a statement, Mr. Sharon's office said he had told Mr. Abbas "that Israel cannot ignore that terror and incitement have decreased of late, and it is noticeable that the Palestinians are making an effort regarding this." But he said terrorists had been rearming during the lull since late June, when the three main Palestinian factions announced that they were suspending attacks on Israelis.

Mr. Sharon said Mr. Abbas needed to "take immediate and definite action to dismantle the terror organizations." Once that happened, he said, "Israel's ability to answer the needs of the Palestinians will be significantly increased."

For now, Israelis are taking advantage of the Palestinian groups' declared cease-fire. Downtown Jerusalem was crowded late Saturday night with young people thronging to bars and restaurants. 

Mr. Abbas said in the interview that the governing Palestinian Authority was also using the cease-fire to rebuild. He said that it would strictly enforce the cease-fire and collect weapons from people carrying them in the streets, but that it would not provoke a civil conflict with Hamas or Islamic Jihad by, for example, searching homes for guns, as Israel demands.

Mr. Bush may ultimately have to resolve that disagreement. 

Mr. Abbas also asked in the meeting today that Israel lift its siege on Mr. Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority, who has been confined in effect to a compound in Ramallah for more than a year. Mr. Abbas was said to have argued that it would strengthen him politically if Mr. Arafat had freedom to move.

Israeli officials said Mr. Sharon had replied that Mr. Arafat was free to leave, but that he might not be permitted to return. 

In what seemed an effort to show that he was backing Mr. Abbas, Mr. Arafat affirmed today a decree he first released in 1998 banning groups that espouse violence.