US President Joe Biden, visiting the West Bank on Friday, restated his continued support for “two states for two peoples” but acknowledged that the “ground is not ripe” for reviving stalled talks aimed at achieving an elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
His comments came during a joint appearance in Bethlehem with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, where he announced USD 201 million for a United Nations agency that supports Palestinians refugees.
“The Palestinian people are hurting now,” Biden said. “You can just feel it. Your grief and frustration. In the US, we can feel it.”
Biden said they “deserve a state of their own that's independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous. Two states for two peoples, both of whom have deep and ancient roots in this land, living side by side in peace and security”.
Although such a goal “can seem so far away”, he said he wouldn't give up on the peace process.
“Even if the ground is not ripe at this moment to restart negotiations, the US and my administration will not give up on bringing the Palestinians and the Israelis, both sides, closer together,” he said.
Abbas, in his own remarks, said “the key to peace” in the region “begins with ending the Israeli occupation of our land”.
He said Israel “cannot continue to act as a state above law" and said the killers of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh “need to be held accountable”.
Abu Akleh was shot during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank in May, and US officials say she was likely killed unintentionally by Israeli troops.
However, they did not say how they reached that conclusion, and the outcome angered many Palestinians, including her family, who accuse the US of trying to help Israel evade responsibility.
Biden said the US “will continue to insist on a full and transparent accounting of her death and will continue to stand up for media freedom everywhere in the world”.
He called her death "an enormous loss to the essential work of sharing with the world the story of the Palestinian people”.
Palestinian journalists wore black T-shirts with Abu Akleh's picture and placed a poster of her on an empty chair in the room where the leaders spoke.
Earlier on Friday, Biden appeared in east Jerusalem at the Augusta Victoria Hospital, which serves Palestinians, to discuss financial assistance for local healthcare.
He proposed USD 100 million, which requires US congressional approval, plus smaller amounts for other assorted programmes.
Israel has also committed to upgrading wireless networks in the West Bank and Gaza, part of a broader effort to improve economic conditions.