US President Donald Trump is sending two top aides to occupied Jerusalem and Ramallah this week to discuss potential next steps in his bid to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, a White House official said on Sunday. Going on the trip will be White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is Trump's son-in-law and husband of his daughter Ivanka Trump, and Jason Greenblatt, a top national security aide. The talks follow Trump's discussions last month with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Behind-the-scenes conversations have been taking place since the Trump trip, the White House official said. "Excited to be traveling back to Israel and the Pal. Territories to continue the discussion about the possibility of peace", Greenblatt tweeted on Sunday night. Kushner and Greenblatt will have meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah to hear directly from the Israeli and Palestinian leadership "about their priorities and potential next steps," the official said. "President Trump has made it clear that working toward achieving a lasting peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians is a top priority for him. He strongly believes that peace is possible," the official said. Kushner and Greenblatt are working with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster on the Middle East issue. "It is important to remember that forging a historic peace agreement will take time and to the extent that there is progress, there are likely to be many visits by both Mr. Kushner and Mr. Greenblatt, sometimes together and sometimes separately, to the region and possibly many trips by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to Washington D.C. or other locations as they pursue substantive talks," the official said. Meanwhile, Gaza's Hamas rulers said that Israel has begun to cut back already limited electricity supplies — a step that is expected to worsen the power crunch plaguing the seaside strip. Mohammed Thabet of the Gaza electricity distribution company says Israel on Monday cut its daily shipment of power from 120 megawatts to 112 megawatts. He says that means residents will receive even less than the four hours of day of power they have been receiving recently. On Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for an end to payments to the families of attackers. Two Palestinians on Friday allegedly opened fire on a group of Israeli officers just outside the walled Old City in annexed east Jerusalem, while a third allegedly stabbed a border policewoman a short distance away. The three alleged perpetrators, all from the West Bank, were shot dead, and the policewoman, Hadas Malka, a 23-year-old staff sergeant major, was taken to hospital in critical condition and later died of her wounds. "Instead of condemning the attack, Fatah... issued a statement in which it condemn(s) the officers who killed the terrorists, and praised the murderers as heroes," Netanyahu said, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's party. A statement by Fatah carried on the official Palestinian news agency Wafa condemned the "killing" of the three Palestinians, without mentioning the circumstances leading up to their deaths. "Of course, the Palestinian Authority is refusing to condemn the murder and the same authority will now pay financial compensation to the murderers' families," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "I call on the countries of the world... to demand an immediate cessation of Palestinian Authority payments to the families of terrorists," Netanyahu said. — Agencies On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Palestinian Authority had agreed to halt payments to the families of slain attackers, including suicide bombers. Israel said it saw no evidence of such a decision and the Palestinians would not confirm. Compensation payments to the families of "martyrs" who die carrying out attacks on Israelis are one of the sticking points in the moribund Middle East peace process. The Israeli policewoman was buried late Saturday in a military cemetery in the southern city of Ashdod. — Agencies
