JERUSALEM — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will begin laying the groundwork for a Mideast peace conference in a visit to Israel today, hoping to push Israelis and Palestinians closer to renewing talks.

Building on warming ties between Israel and moderate Arab countries, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said that Israel hopes "many Arab countries will attend this international meeting, including Saudi Arabia."

The statement came in reaction to an announcement today by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal that his country would seriously consider attending the gathering if invited. Speaking at a press conference with Rice and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Saud said his government would "look very closely and very hard at attending" if the conference dealt with "issues of real substance, not form."

A meeting between Israeli and Saudi representatives would be a major diplomatic breakthrough. Though Israel and Saudi Arabia are both U.S. allies, representatives of the countries have never officially met and Saudi Arabia has never recognized the Jewish state.

Rice's visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, part of a wider tour of U.S. regional allies, is her first since the Islamic group Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June. Since then, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has run the West Bank with a moderate government led by his Fatah movement, and has won broad international backing while Hamas remains largely isolated.

Olmert's office said that the regional meeting also would be able to "grant an umbrella to the bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians."

Rice's meetings with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem today and with leaders of Abbas' U.S.-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank on Thursday will be her first with the sides since the regional political constellation was altered by Hamas' violent seizure of control of Gaza Strip from Abbas' forces.

That takeover has spurred a flurry of peacemaking efforts in the past month aimed at shoring up Palestinian moderates, including a first visit to the region by international Mideast peace envoy Tony Blair and an unprecedented visit to Israel by a delegation from the 22-nation Arab League.

That. delegation urged Israel to accept an Arab plan offering peace in return for a withdrawal from all land captured in the 1967 Mideast War.