Washington is against Israeli settlement expansions in the Palestinian territories, the U.S. envoy said Wednesday.

Speaking to the Israeli public broadcaster KAN, ambassador Tom Nides said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that the Biden administration's stance is in favor of keeping the "vision of a two-state solution alive."

The U.S. administration also opposes "legalizing [Israeli] outposts and massive settlement expansion" of settlements across the occupied West Bank, he added.

The U.S. diplomat denied boycotting any members of the new Israeli government amid reports that he refuses to contact far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir over his radical views on the Palestinians.

"We are going to work with the Israeli government, its democratically elected government," Nides said.

Last week, Ben-Gvir's visit to the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem triggered a storm of condemnations from countries across the world, including Jordan, Türkiye, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan.

The U.S. ambassador said that Netanyahu's government declared that it is going to preserve the status quo in Jerusalem's holy sites.

Palestinians accuse Israel of systematically working to Judaize East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, and to obliterate its Arab and Islamic identity.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third-holiest site. Jews, for their part, call the area the Temple Mount, saying it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980, in a move never recognized by the international community.

Under international law, all Jewish settlements in occupied territories are considered illegal.