  We present the spectral analysis of an XMM-Newton observation of the X-ray
binary 4U 1700+24, performed during an outburst in August 2002. The EPIC-PN
spectrum above 1 keV can be modeled by a blackbody plus Comptonization model,
as in previous observations. At lower energies, however, we detect a prominent
soft excess, which we model with a broad Gaussian centered at ~0.5 keV. In the
high resolution RGS spectrum we detect a single emission line, centered at
19.19^{+0.05}_{-0.09} \AA. We discuss two possible interpretations for this
line: O VIII at redshift z=0.012^{+0.002}_{-0.004} or Ne IX at redshift z~0.4.
