JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held his first formal meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday and told him that Israel would release $100 million in frozen Palestinian funds and remove some checkpoints in the West Bank, officials said.

The two-hour meeting at Olmert’s official residence was the first summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in 22 months, but it focused mainly on goodwill gestures rather than on the substantive issues dividing the two sides.

Olmert and Abbas, weakened by political troubles at home, are seeking to bolster their positions by showing progress in peace efforts.

Abbas is locked in a bitter power struggle with the governing Hamas faction, and his call last week for new elections intensified fighting on the streets between his security forces and Hamas gunmen. Violence has continued despite a declared truce, and a senior security official loyal to Abbas was seriously wounded in a shooting attack in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

Olmert’s popularity has plummeted after an inconclusive war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon last summer, which led to the shelving of his plan to withdraw Jewish settlements from large parts of the West Bank and unilaterally set Israel’s borders. He has also come under pressure from the US and European Union to help shore up Abbas’s standing.

At the meeting, announced shortly before it was held, Olmert gave Abbas a warm reception outside his residence, kissing him on both cheeks before ushering him in to meet his wife, Aliza, who is known for her dovish views. Palestinian and Israeli flags were posted in the reception hall and on a table where the leaders met.

A statement from Olmert’s office said the two men had decided to hold frequent meetings in the future, and that they agreed that “the time has come to advance the peace process via concrete steps.”

Saeb Erekat, an aide to Abbas, said that the two leaders “reiterated their commitment to reviving a meaningful peace process that would lead to a two state solution.”

Olmert agreed to release $100 million of frozen Palestinian tax and customs revenues to fund medical supplies and ongoing operations of Palestinian hospitals and to meet other humanitarian needs, his office said. In addition Israel will also transfer about $7 million to Palestinian-run hospitals in Jerusalem, Erekat said.

Miri Eisin, a spokesman for Olmert, said the funds would not be transferred through the Hamas-controlled Palestinian government “to make sure they don’t fall into terrorist hands.”

Israel has withheld a total of about $500 million in tax and customs revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians at ports and border crossings since the Hamas-led government took office early this year. The cutoff, along with a freeze on aid from Western nations, has left the government unable to pay wages of 165,000 civil servants and provide needed services.

Olmert also agreed to remove several West Bank checkpoints to ease travel in the area, and to upgrade security measures at the main cargo crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel to allow up to 400 trucks to move through the crossing every day, his office said. That target was set in an agreement on Gaza border crossings brokered last year by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The two leaders agreed to consider extending a cease-fire between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, provided the truce was fully observed in Gaza, Eisin said. Olmert warned that Israel would not hold back much longer if rocket fire from the area continued.

The leaders also agreed to reactivate several other joint committees, including those dealing with security issues and the status of Palestinians wanted by Israel, that have been dormant since they were set up at the last Palestinian-Israeli summit between Abbas and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Egypt in February 2005.