U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton again defended the U.S. stance on Israeli settlement building to Arab allies on Wednesday during a visit to Egypt, the last leg of a trip to rally support for renewed peace talks in the Middle East.

Clinton said Washington does not accept the legitimacy of West Bank enclaves and wants to see construction in the region halted "forever."

"We do not accept the legitimacy of settlement activity. Ending all settlement activity current and future would be preferable," she told reporters after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.

Clinton began her diplomatic trip a week ago in Pakistan, but also visited Israeli and Palestinian leaders and met with Arab leaders during a conference in Morocco before visiting Egypt.

It was after her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem that Clinton praised Israel's offer to restrain — but not halt — construction as an "unprecedented" gesture, a comment some in the Arab world took to mean the U.S. was softening its stance on the issue of settlement construction.

Some 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem alongside 2.8 million Palestinians. Israel captured the areas in the 1967 war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Egypt urges renewed talks

Palestinian leaders see the areas as sites of a potential Palestinian state and have repeatedly called for Israel to stop construction in the region, which they see as Israel's way of entrenching in the regions and making a partition more difficult.

On Wednesday Clinton said the Israeli offer "is not what we would prefer because we would like to see everything ended forever."

"But it is something that I think shows at least a positive movement forward toward final status issues being addressed," she said.

Clinton's meeting in Cairo with Mubarak appeared to have reassured Egypt, an ally in the region Clinton said was "an essential partner" in peace negotiations.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called for a resumption of peace talks, saying the big picture was too important to focus on conditions before parties agree to meet.

"The Egyptian vision is that we have to concentrate on the end game, and we must not waste time adhering to this issue or that as a start for the negotiations," Aboul Gheit said at a press conference with Clinton.

That comment appeared to be directed at Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who has consistently refused to reopen negotiations until Israel has stopped building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Clinton's diplomatic mission comes as Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, are engaged in a public-relations war over an alleged missile launch. On Tuesday Israeli intelligence chiefs claimed Hamas had test-fired a missile capable of striking Tel Aviv, the largest metropolitan area in Israel, while Hamas denied the claim.

With files from The Associated Press