RAMALLAH: The US has admitted it failed to secure a new Israeli settlement freeze, a Palestinian official said Thursday, dealing a potential knockout blow to renewed peace efforts.
"The US administration has informed us that the Israeli government did not agree to a new settlement freeze," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The US administration will continue its efforts," the official added.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP earlier Thursday that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was to meet with US consul general Daniel Rubinstein in the course of the day.
The US consulate had no immediate comment on the reports.
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also had no comment, but pointed out that the premier told the Knesset on Wednesday that Israel was "working closely with the United States… to find an effective route to resuming talks."
The United States has for weeks been trying to convince Netanyahu to impose a new moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank.
A previous 10-month freeze expired on September 26, shortly after the launch of new peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the first direct negotiations between the two sides in nearly two years.
The talks collapsed after the ban expired and settlement building resumed.
Abbas later said he will not return without a new ban on Jewish construction on land the Palestinians want for their future state.
In an attempt to revive the talks, the United States offered Israel a package of incentives including 20 F-35 fighter planes, worth three billion dollars, in exchange for a new three-month ban.
Washington also committed that it would not seek an additional freeze, and pledged to provide Israel with diplomatic support, including vetoing anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations.
The package would also have allowed Israel to continue building in east Jerusalem, over the objections of the Palestinians, who want the annexed east part of the city for the capital of their future state.
But the idea of a new freeze on settlement construction is deeply unpopular among many in the Israeli parliament, including in Netanyahu’s own cabinet.
On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli public radio he did not believe a new moratorium would be implemented.
"I think, like many others, that there will not be another freeze. We must erase the word freeze from our vocabulary," he said.
"We saw what the previous 10-month freeze got us — it didn’t achieve a breakthrough in the negotiations," the chief diplomat said.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed two armed Palestinians planning a "terror attack" as they approached the northern border fence of the Gaza Strip, the military said on Thursday.
"IDF (Israel Defence Forces) thwarts terror attack in northern Gaza," a statement from the military said.
"Overnight, an IDF force identified a number of armed Palestinians near the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip," said the statement.
"An IAF (Israel Air Force) aircraft, accompanied by an IDF ground force using tank shells, fired towards the militants, identifying a hit."
The military said later in a statement its soldiers searched the area after the incident and found the bodies of "two terrorists of the Islamic Jihad organization, and on them light weapons, uniforms and an explosive device."
A military spokesman told AFP the men were killed inside the Gaza Strip before they entered Israeli territory.
The military said about 100 "terror-related incidents" have occurred near the border fence surrounding Gaza since the beginning of 2010, "an average of an incident every three days."
"The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for maintaining the calm in the Gaza Strip and for any terrorist activity emanating from it," the statement said.
