Report: Clinton to visit Israel and West Bank

Tel Aviv - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to make her first visit to Israel and the West Bank since the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in March, Israeli and Palestinian media reported Wednesday. Clinton is expected to land in Tel Aviv Saturday night, meet with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday and also to travel to the West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

A spokesman for the US embassy in Tel Aviv said he could not yet confirm the visit to Israel and the Palestinian areas.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the time of the meeting with Abbas had yet to be determined.

Clinton's first and only visit to the region as secretary of state was in early March, a "familiarization" trip made as the hardline Netanyahu, whose government was sworn in on March 31, was still in the process of forming his coalition.

Her latest visit comes as the sides have as yet failed to find a compromise that would enable a revival of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, broken off in late 2008 as Israel headed into new elections.

President Barack Obama announced at a three-way summit in New York last month that his administration would hold intense contacts with both parties with the goal of reviving the talks this autumn.

Clinton reported back to him with the results of those contacts last week, but with no apparent breakthrough.

While Netanyahu continues to demand a revival of talks without pre-conditions, Abbas says he will not sit down with the new Israeli government unless it agrees to freeze all construction in West Bank settlements and pick up the talks from where they were left off under the previous government of centrist former premier Ehud Olmert.