Israelis and Palestinians have opened their first formal peace talks in the region for nearly five years in a fresh push to end decades of conflict.
But the talks were shrouded in secrecy, with the two sides saying very little about the meeting.
The Israeli government released a brief video showing the chief negotiators, Yitzhak Molcho and Tzipi Livni of Israel and Saeb Erekat of the Palestinians, shaking hands in an undisclosed location.
An Israeli official would only say the meeting took place in Jerusalem. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because no one had authorisation to publicly discuss the talks.
The meeting capped months of intense diplomacy by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has visited the region six times since taking office in a push to restart talks.
Both sides have low expectations as they head into the third attempt since 2000 to agree on the terms of creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The meeting came hours after Israel released 26 Palestinian prisoners to bring the Palestinians back to the table.
Israel is expected to free a total of 104 long-serving prisoners as the talks progress in the coming months.
The talks have already been clouded by Israeli plans to build more than 3,000 new homes in Jewish settlements on occupied land sought for the Palestinian state.
Ahead of Wednesday's meeting, a senior Palestinian official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, warned the talks could collapse at "any time" over Israeli settlement building.
Hard-line Israeli politicians have vowed to fight any major concessions made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon, from Netanyahu's Likud Party, said such an agreement "will not win support, not just from me, but also from the Likud and, I think, most of the nation".
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