US President Donald Trump will host Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the path forward in the long-running Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Despite the trend in the general public toward a more evenhanded approach on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, that’s not the case for Trump backers.

“With the support of Egypt and Jordan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is hoping that he can slightly change the balance of forces in favor of a fair process in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ahead of his visit to the United States,” writes Daoud Kuttab.

Palestinian analysts have rounded on Hamas after it published a policy document promising a new direction, with some saying it had dispensed with decades of struggle in an attempt to gain international legitimacy.

“The EU should welcome Hamas’ new political platform and seize the opportunity to engage moderates within the movement,” writes Hugh Lovatt.

“Hamas’s new document was written in the knowledge that the following conclusion is widespread among Palestinians: The concessions on fundamental principles made by the PLO and its dominant Fatah faction haven’t made Israel change; on the contrary, they have let it intensify its process of taking over territory and its rule over the Palestinian people,” writes Amira Hass.

UNESCO’s executive board has passed a resolution that criticises Israel’s actions in occupied Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, with Palestinian leaders hailing the move as a “step forward” and a “victory for international law”.

Israel will cut another $1 million dollars in funding to the UN, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced at a cabinet meeting Wednesday morning following the passage of a UNESCO resolution critical of Israeli policy a day earlier.

“The measure of Greenblatt’s work is whether it actually brings the sides back to the negotiating table, creating space for the kind of diplomatic breakthrough that can change the dynamics of a now-static process,” writes Armin Rosen.

A worsening of the humanitarian situation is a matter of time, considering severe disruptions in supply to water pumping stations (for household use), sewage disposal and treatment facilities, and hospitals.

Two Israeli men with serious mental health conditions who crossed separately from Israel into the Gaza Strip in 2014 and 2015 have apparently been held by the Hamas military wing, Human Rights Watch said today.

“Israel’s refusal to allow 225 Palestinians into the country to attend a joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony shows the government will do anything to dehumanize ‘the other,'” write the editors of Ha’aretz.

Israeli authorities closed all entrances of Hebron city in the southern occupied West Bank early Wednesday in search of three Israeli settlers who had went missing and were later found in Jerusalem.