Obama in Ramallah, hoping to energize peace efforts, hours after Gaza rocket hits Sderot.Live blog Obama in Israel day Two.

Obama in Ramallah, hoping to energize peace efforts, hours after Gaza rocket hits Sderot.Live blog Obama in Israel day Two.HT: TimesOfIsrael.

Hamas leader says ‘American policies perpetuate the Israeli occupation’

Ahead of the Abbas-Obama joint press conference, Hamas in Gaza head Ismail Haniyeh gives the American president a vote of no confidence.

“We believe American policies perpetuate the Israeli occupation and settlements in Palestine under a slogan of peace,” he said, according to a report in the Palestinian Ma’an news agency.

Earlier in the day, four rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel, breaking a fragile calm in the south, in what was thought to be an attack timed to coincide with Obama’s visit.

A leaked draft of talking points Mahmoud Abbas intends to bring up with US President Barack Obama includes support for a secret freeze on settlements, the New York Times reports.

The report points to a softening of the Palestinian Authority’s demands as preconditions for returning to the negotiating table.

They also include pleas for Benjamin Netanyahu to commit to the 1967 lines as a starting point in peace talks and a suggestion by Abbas that he will dissolve the PA if progress is not made.

“I am not threatening, I am sharing a fact with you,” Abbas will tell Obama according to the memo. “If this situation continues I will be forced to ask Prime Minister Netenyahoo[sic] to resume his responsibilities.”

As Obama lands in Ramallah, the city’s central Al-Manara square has filled with 200-300 angry protesters demonstrating against the US president’s visit. Many are shouting slogans such as, “We don’t want anything peaceful, only bullets and missiles,” and, “Go home you devil, we don’t want to see Americans here,” Times of Israel correspondent Elhanan Miller reports.

Many protesters are holding up signs calling for Palestinian prisoners to be released, including Fathiya Ajaji, whose son Ahmed is in jail in the US for involvement in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. Most of the parties represented at the rally are leftist Palestinian factions.Read the live updates here.