US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has pledged support for Israel on his visit to Jerusalem.

As part of an overseas tour aimed at boosting his foreign policy credentials, Mr Obama met Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

Mr Obama will meet President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert later.

He said: "I will share some of my ideas. The most important idea for me to reaffirm is the historic and special relationship between the US and Israel - one that cannot be broken."

Mr Obama, who faces Republican John McCain in the November election, is struggling to overcome worries among some Israelis and some Jewish voters in the US about the strength of his commitment to Israel.

But he also dismayed Palestinian leaders when he said last month that Jerusalem should be Israel's "undivided" capital. Palestinians want Arab East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967, as the capital of a future state. Obama later said he used "poor phrasing" when he made the remarks.

The itinerary of the Illinois senator also includes a visit to the occupied West Bank to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Obama arrived in Israel just hours after a Palestinian rammed a bulldozer into vehicles on a busy Jerusalem street near the hotel booked for his stay. The attacker wounded at least 16 people, one seriously, before being shot dead.

Mr Obama said the bulldozer attack was "just one reminder of why we have to work diligently, urgently and in a unified way to defeat terrorism".

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