JERUSALEM – Washington's special Mideast envoy headed back to Jerusalem on Sunday to try to get peacemaking moving again, with a Nobel Peace Prize for his boss adding new pressure.

But envoy George Mitchell had no achievements to report after meeting with Israeli leaders.

A laconic statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with Mitchell to continue talks "to advance the peace process." Lower-level Israeli officials are to travel to Washington this week for further discussions, it added.

Mitchell met with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas late last week before traveling to Cairo over the weekend to meet with Egyptian officials who play leading roles in mediating the conflict.

The U.S. envoy is dealing with adversaries whose positions haven't softened despite months of shuttle diplomacy. Israel refused to succumb to U.S. pressure to freeze settlement construction, and the Palestinians say they won't resume talks without that freeze.

Abbas will be hard-pressed to back down on that demand after provoking unprecedented outrage among his people for suspending efforts to bring Israel before a Gaza Strip war crimes tribunal.

President Barack Obama made a personal push last month to jump start the stalled talks with a three-way meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas. But there has been no visible progress toward reviving a moribund peace process on which Obama has staked Washington's credibility and his own.

The U.S. president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Complicating the U.S. peace mission is the deep and bitter divide between Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Egypt has been trying to broker a power-sharing deal to reconcile the West Bank-based Abbas and the Islamic militant Hamas group that has ruled Gaza since a violent, 2007 takeover.

A reconciliation deal was to have been signed on Oct. 25, but Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Sunday that the elusive agreement has been delayed for several weeks. The accord was to have allowed the two sides to cooperate in rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza and prepare for Palestinian elections in the first half of next year.