Mitchell’s visit comes amidst reports the Israeli government has deliberately hidden its own data showing rapid construction in West Bank settlements. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports an internal government survey found construction in three out of four settlements was conducted without proper permits and, in many cases, on private Palestinian land. The Israeli group Peace Now said this week settlement expansion grew 57 percent last year. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas told Mitchell that Israel’s blockade of Gaza and its expanding West Bank settlements are the main obstacles to peace.

Saeb Erekat: “For the Israelis to continue their settlement activities and at the same time to continue trying to separate between the West Bank and Gaza, because we believe that the Israeli attacks and aggression against Gaza — one of the objective is to keep the West Bank separated from Gaza, and this cannot stand. The West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem are a single territorial unit that’s the territory of the Palestinian state, and we will spare no effort, as President Abbas told Mr. Mitchell, to pursue, with the assistance of our Egyptian brothers, the path of national reconciliation.”

Mitchell won’t be traveling to Gaza, as the Obama White House continues the Bush administration’s boycott of the democratically elected Hamas government. In Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh urged Obama to break with Bush policy.

Ismail Haniyeh: “To build relations, as President Obama said, with the Arab and Islamic world stemming from mutual respect and mutual interests, we say the gate to this relationship with our Arab and Islamic world is from Palestine, from the Palestinian cause and from the need of a change in the US policy when it comes to the Palestinian rights and their suffering.”