The US was on Friday scrambling to contain the diplomatic fallout of Donald Trump’s decision on Jerusalem as Arab leaders threatened to cancel meetings with the vice president and allies rounded on it at the UN.

Israel carried out airstrikes in Gaza in response to rockets fired from the territory and two Palestinian men were killed during clashes with Israeli forces.

As protests broke out across the Middle East, US diplomats were working to salvage the visit by Mike Pence, the vice president, to the region amid public pressure on leaders not to meet with him.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, threatened to cancel his planned meeting with Mr Pence, the first time in years that a Palestinian leader has so publicly challenged the White House.

“Jerusalem is more important than the American administration and we will not give up on it in return for a meeting with the US vice president,” a spokesman for Mr Abbas told al-Jazeera.

Another senior Palestinian official said Mr Pence, who stood is a strong supporter of Israel and stood at Mr Trump’s side during his Jerusalem speech was “unwelcome in Palestine”.

The same message was scrawled in graffiti on walls in Bethlehem, where Mr Pence was scheduled to meet Mr Abbas.

US officials said they had expected Palestinian anger over Mr Trump’s announcement but warned that it would “counterproductive” for the Palestinian president to so publicly snub America’s second-highest leader.

As well as visiting Israel and the occupied West Bank, Mr Pence is expected to travel to Egypt.

His office had requested a meeting with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Egypt’s most senior Muslim cleric, but the sheikh said he would refuse to meet him until the US reversed its decision on Jerusalem.

A spokesman for Mr Pence said: “We are still finalising the vice president’s travel schedule and will make more of it public in the coming days.”