U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he had come to Israel from a weekend visit to Saudi Arabia with new reasons to hope that peace and stability could be achieved in the Middle East.

“Rather than approaching Israel/Palestine as a property that a good negotiator can convince both parties to divide, Trump approaches the issue, at least initially, as a conflict of good versus evil that could easily be solved if only the good people of all religions would unite against those abusing faith for their wicked ends,” writes Raphael Ahren.

The press-shy first son-in-law’s links with one of Israel’s richest and most controversial families could complicate his position as the broker of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

“Israel has consistently used negotiations as a facade to maintain its settlement expansion policies. That policy will persist under the Trump administration,” Tareq Baconi, a US-based policy fellow at Al-Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network, told Al Jazeera.

“Will he take the road to achieve a just and lasting peace in our region based on the interests of U.S. national security? Or will he continue on the path of granting Israel political impunity and monetary funds to advance its apartheid regime in occupied Palestinian lands,” asks Palestinian Knesset member Ahmad Tibi.

In a visit fraught with symbolism, President Trump on Monday became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Egyptian diplomatic sources were quoted as saying that the Saudis expressed “interest “in “directly” participating in the negotiations, though no agreement on the matter was reached on Sunday. If Riyadh did participate, it would represent a major shift in Saudi policy, as the powerful Gulf kingdom has never sat down at the negotiating table with Israelis and Palestinians.

Some 70 percent of settlement construction in the West Bank last year took place outside the so-called settlement blocs, Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now claimed in a report released Sunday.

Palestinians were on Monday observing a general strike in solidarity with prisoners refusing food in Israeli jails for more than a month over their conditions.

At least 13 Palestinians were shot and injured — one seriously — during clashes with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank districts of Ramallah and Hebron on Monday afternoon, as clashes also broke when Israeli forces suppressed demonstrations launched in solidarity with more than 1,300 Palestinian prisoners who entered their 36th day on hunger strike.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will present a plan that would see the Palestinians giving up 6.5 percent of their lands to Israel, three times as much as previously offered, during US President Donald Trump’s visit to the West Bank on Tuesday, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Without genuine and serious peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, and a freeze on settlement construction, Arab states will not consider thawing their relations with Israel, former head of the Arab League Amr Moussa said.

Israeli ministers approved a series of economic measures for Palestinians on Sunday, meant as a package of goodwill gestures ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region this week.

On 3 April 2017, Civil Administration officials came with bulldozers to Wadi Qana, in the Qalqiliyah area. They uprooted 135 olive tree saplings on land belonging to the ‘Awad family from the village of Deir Istiya.

Let’s stop calling those who have bombed, shot, or burned Palestinians ‘Jewish.’ Let’s call them what they really are: Israeli.

“I remember the nightmare of Jerusalem Day as a child in the Muslim Quarter: the right-wingers rampaging through the alleyways, the racist slogans, the police standing by, and my father staying home from work to guard our home,” writes Suleiman Maswadeh.

As Hamas and other main factions boycotted the local elections held in the West Bank, Palestinians cast their votes in low numbers reflecting their mistrust in the political forces.

“Netanyahu’s goodwill ‘gestures’ to the Palestinians are nothing more than a way to appease President Trump on his visit. So why is the media playing along?” asks Noam Sheizaf.

“The good news: the Right has a plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The bad news: it’s as racist as you think,” writes Samah Salaime.