The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and prime minister, Ismail Haniya, have failed to come up with a plan to ease a financial crisis that threatens to bankrupt the Hamas-led government Abbas' adviser Nabil Abu Rudeina said after four hours of talks between the two on Saturday that Hamas had not agreed to make policy changes towards Israel that could alleviate an aid freeze by the US and Europe. "To our great regret the international community is refusing to deal with us as a whole as long as the government does not change its position. And the people are paying the price," Abu Rudeina said.He was alluding to Hamas' refusal to accept past peace agreements with Israel or recognise Israel. Hamas has said it would acknowledge Israel's existence only if the country withdrew from the territories it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, let all Palestinians that fled or were epxelled in 1948 go home, and liberated prisoners. These conditions are unacceptable to Israel. "The president has been seeking to find the mechanism to end the financial crisis", Abu Rudeina said after the talks held in Gaza City. "But unfortunately a mechanism has not been reached and there are still obstacles."