Kerry's $75m Bid To Boost Middle East Talks

US Secretary of State John Kerry has pledged an extra $75m ($46m) in aid to help Palestinians, as he arrived in the Middle East to join peace talks.

Designed to boost Palestinian public support for the faltering negotiations, the additional cash is intended to create jobs and improve roads, schools and other infrastructure.

The announcement came as Mr Kerry met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of attempts to overcome the host of problems hindering the talks.

"I am very confident of our ability to work through them," he told reporters as he opened the meeting in a Jerusalem hotel.

Palestinian protesters during a demonstration as Kerry visited Bethlehem

"That is why I am here. This can be achieved with good faith and a serious effort on both sides."

He also urged both Mr Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who he met later in the day, to make "real compromises and hard decisions."

Senior Palestinians say an Israeli plan announced last week for 3,500 more settler homes in the occupied West Bank represents a major obstacle in the negotiations.

But Mr Netanyahu claimed the Palestinians' behaviour posed a greater threat to the discussions.

"I am concerned about the progress because I see the Palestinians continuing with incitement, continuing to create artificial crises, continuing to avoid, run away from the historic decisions that are needed to make a genuine peace," he said.

Mr Kerry also met Mahmoud Abbas

He said he hoped Mr Kerry's discussions in Jerusalem and with Mr Abbas "will help steer (the negotiations) back to a place where we could achieve the historical peace that we seek."

Speaking after meeting Mr Abbas, Mr Kerry reaffirmed the US' view of the settlements as "illegitimate".

Meanwhile, Palestinians held demonstrations in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, holding banners demanding an end to the settlements and criticising 'Israeli occupation and apartheid'.

On the sidelines of the peace talks, Israel has released half of the 104 Palestinian prisoners it pledged to free under a US-brokered deal to draw Mr Abbas back to negotiations that Palestinians abandoned in 2010 over settlement building.

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