Rice meets Abbas, pledges help for Palestinians

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday the United States is "very concerned" about the plight of the Palestinians and pledged to improve living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza.

Rice, in the region in hopes of reviving long-stalled peace efforts, said the U.S. will "redouble efforts" to help the Palestinians. She spoke after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The meeting coincided with the surfacing of a 5-minute Web video by a group calling itself al Qaeda in Palestine, which denounced those who "work in the service of the Jews."

Earlier, Rice called on Islamic militants to cooperate with Abbas, saying the Hamas government cannot govern in the region. She has been seeking to boost Abbas in his standoff with Islamic Hamas radicals who control part of the Palestinian government.

Reacting, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas accused the U.S. of trying to "rearrange" the Middle East for its own purposes. Rice "cares only to rearrange this region and to rearrange the Palestinian scene in a way that serves the American and Israeli agenda," Haniyeh said.

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