The White House has announced that the US president will host three-way talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement that Barack Obama would meet Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas separately before the three go into a joint session.<br/><br/>The announcement follows a weeklong trip of US envoy George Mitchell's visit to the Middle East region, which ended without agreement.<br/><br/>It will be the first meeting between Israelis and Palestinians since Netanyahu became Prime minister of Israel this year.<br/><br/>While Palestinian chief negotiator, belonging to Fateh group has welcomed Obama's personal involvement in the peace process indicating low Palestinian expectations for a positive outcome, the leader of other Palestinian group Hamas, Ismail Haniya has warned against making any concessions to Israel during the talks. Israeli Prime minister’s office responded positively to the invitation.<br/><br/>Palestinians have been demanding a halt to Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as a condition for resuming talks with Israel. Under pressure from his own far right cabinet members, Netanyahu has repeatedly ignored US calls in this regard.<br/><br/>While analysts are not optimistic about this meeting, they say that it may pave the way for the resumption of peace talks, stalled since Israel's war against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December.