LIVE: Trump in Israel and 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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

"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”.

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.

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.

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.