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LIVE: Trump in Israel and occupied West Bank

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LIVE: Trump in Israel and occupied West Bank
Donald Trump back in Jerusalem after a brief meeting with Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem
  • Donald Trump has met the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talks in Bethlehem
  • The US president says he will do "everything I can" to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians
  • Visit comes day after US president visited Israel and held talks with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
  • Palestinians have called for a 'day of rage' to mark the US president's trip
  • MEE reports Abbas was to tell Trump he is willing for a land swap with Israel to re-energise talks with Israel

Live Updates

7 years ago

Donald Trump meets with his counterpart Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank (AFP)
Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to do "everything I can" to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians as he met Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank.

"I am committed to trying to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and I intend to do everything I can to help them achieve that goal," said the US president in comments after holding talks with his Palestinian counterpart in Bethlehem.

Trump has spoken of reviving long-stalled peace efforts between the Israelis and Palestinians, but few specifics have emerged of how he intends to do so.

Trump avoided delving into details on Monday before dinner at the residence of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I've heard it's one of the toughest deals of all, but I have a feeling that we're going to get there eventually, I hope," he said.

7 years ago

Donald Trump and his party have said their final farewells – including Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben-Gurion Airport -  and now departed Israel and the Middle East on Air Force One.

Next stop: Italy and a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday.

 

7 years ago

Protesters in support of the hunger strikers gather in Bethlehem on 23 May (AFP)

Not everyone in Bethlehem was as pleased to see Donald Trump as Mahmoud Abbas.

Here, Palestinian protesters shout slogans outside the Church of the Nativity during a demonstration in support of the hunger strikers.

Palestinian officials say some 1,500 prisoners are participating in the hunger strike that began on 17 April, with detainees ingesting only water and salt. Israeli authorities have put the number at around 1,200.

On Monday a a general strike in solidarity with the prisoners paralysed east Jerusalem as well as West Bank cities and suburbs, with shops closed and both public and private sector employees refusing to work.

7 years ago

A Palestinian man stabbed and lightly wounded a border policeman in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya on Tuesday before being shot and wounded himself, Israeli police have said, according to agency reports.

The attack came during Donald Trump’s visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank. There is no suggestion that the attack was linked to the visit.

Police said that the attacker was in his mid-forties and from the nearby city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

7 years ago

Here’s the full text of that Donald Trump speech in the West Bank with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Trump is now back in Israel.

7 years ago

Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have laid a wreath during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, which commemorates the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Trump said that it was “humanity's solemn duty to mourn and grieve every life lost during the Holocaust.

"Words can never describe the bottomless depths of that evil, or the scope of the anguish and destruction. It was history's darkest hour. It was the most savage crime against God and his children."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who was also present at the ceremony – said that terror was terror, be it in Manchester, San Bernardino or Jerusalem.

Seeming to reference Trump’s earlier comments about the Manchester attack, Netanyahu said that "it is our job to make sure the terrorists continue to lose”.

7 years ago

Donald Trump at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on 23 May 2017 (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump has said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are prepared to "reach for peace" as his visit to Israel and Palestine draws to a close.

Speaking in Jeruslaem, Trump called on Israelis and Palestinians to make compromises that could lead to peace

"I had a meeting this morning with President Abbas and can tell you that the Palestinians are ready to reach for peace," Trump said in speech at the Israel Museum.

"In my meeting with my very good friend Benjamin, I can tell you also, that he is reaching for peace. He wants peace."

"Making peace, however, will not be easy. We all know that. Both sides will face tough decisions. But with determination, compromise and the belief that peace is possible, Israelis and Palestinians can make a deal."

But Trump offered no specifics on where the peace process would progress, nor made mention of the two-state solution.

7 years ago

While in the West Bank, Trump appeared to link Monday night's deadly suicide bombing in the British city of Manchester to Islamist violence.

Trump, speaking in Bethlehem following talks with Palestinian Authoritry President Mahmoud Abbas, said that the attack illustrated the need to tackle Islamist extremism - a theme he talked about in a speech in Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

Expressing condolences to those injured and the families of those killed, Trump said the attack had been carried out by "evil losers".

Authorities in the UK have not yet identitied those who carried out the bombing, which killed 22 people.

7 years ago

Top of the agenda at the Trump-Abbas talks will have been the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This piece by Meron Rapoport, former head of news at Haaertz, gives some strong insight into how the US president’s positions on the issue seems unclear - or even unreliable.