JERUSALEM, Mar 4 (AFP): US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to meet with Palestinian leaders as she pushes on with "aggressive" diplomacy after vowing to work towards a Palestinian state.
She was to speak with Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad in the occupied West Bank's political capital of Ramallah a day after huddling with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem.
The Palestinians will urge Clinton to press Israel to open border crossings into Hamas-run Gaza, stop settlement activity in the West Bank and rescind eviction orders in annexed east Jerusalem, officials said.
"Any Israeli government that will be formed must accept the two-state solution, all agreements signed and stop settlement activity," senior negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
"Border crossings must be opened into Gaza ... and eviction orders for Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah must be stopped."
In addition, Israel must scrap its so-called E-1 project, which would link the Maale Adumim settlement and surroundings to Jerusalem, in effect cutting the West Bank in two.
On her first visit to the region since her appointment by US President Barack Obama, Clinton announced she was sending two envoys to Syria and vowed to pursue a comprehensive peace plan while stressing that Israel could count on continued support from its staunchest ally.
Two members of her delegation -- Jeffrey Feltman and Daniel Shapiro -- are expected to travel to Syria at the end of the week, in what will be highest level contacts since January 2005. Syria is a longtime foe of the Jewish state with whom US relations have been strained for years.
"There are a number of issues we have between Syria and the United States as well as the larger regional concerns that Syria obviously poses," she said after talks with outgoing Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
In her meetings with Israeli leaders, Clinton underscored the US commitment to creating a viable Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel.
"It is our assessment ... that eventually, the inevitability of working toward a two-state solution is inescapable," she said.
Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza, lashed out at her comments calling them "the height of bias towards the Israeli occupation." Clinton's visit comes when relations between the US and Israel are in a flux.
While Obama has vowed to vigorously pursue Middle East peace, presumptive Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netnyahu will likely preside over a narrow right-wing coalition that is opposed to a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu said he and Clinton "agreed to meet again after a government is formed and to work in tight cooperation in order to bring security, peace and prosperity to the region."
As premier in 1996, Netanyahu put the brakes on the Oslo peace process. He has said he will now focus on building up the Palestinian economy instead of immediately pushing for a final settlement.
The peace talks were revived in Annapolis in November 2007 but made little progress and were frozen when the Gaza war broke out.
Obama has nevertheless vowed to actively pursue the peace process and has appointed a special envoy, veteran diplomat George Mitchell, to coax both sides back to the negotiating table.
In their discussions, Israeli leaders focused instead on Iran and its nuclear programme, which the Jewish state considers its main threat.
Clinton arrived in Israel from Egypt, where she outlined her Middle East strategy at a conference on the post-war reconstruction of Gaza, for which international donors pledged 4.5 billion dollars.
