Barbara Leaf, a senior diplomatic officer for Middle East affairs at the US State Department, will arrive tomorrow in the occupied Palestinian territories to meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials, before US President Joe Biden's anticipated visit to the region.

According to reliable information, the central objective of Leaf's visit was to calm Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with regard to American commitment to the Palestinian cause and the two-state solution, the newspaper added. That came after a tense and strongly worded phone call between Abbas and US Secretary of State Antony, during which the former expressed deep frustration with US policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, accusing the Biden administration of abandoning its pledges to him.

The visit follows the failure of President Joe Biden's administration to convene a tripartite US-Palestinian-Israeli summit after the occupation rejected the proposal.