...[A]s late as yesterday there was still no agreement on a time or place, officials said, because the final approval was needed from a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation later this week. Israeli officials said that they still did not know whether Mr Mitchell would shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah, conveying messages, or whether the two sides would convene in separate suites of a hotel in Jerusalem.

“If somebody knows, they are not saying. It’s all a big mystery,” said one Israeli official. “We are on the eve of actually launching the talks and no one knows how it’s going to happen.”

The talks are expected to be led on the Israeli side by Mr Netanyahu’s two closest aides, Uzi Arad and Ron Derma, because the Foreign Ministry — which co-ordinated the last round of talks in 2008 — is now headed by Avigdor Lieberman, a West Bank settler. Officials said that Mr Lieberman had voluntarily sidelined himself from the negotiations.