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Kerry, Obama Call on Israeli, Palestinian Leaders to Urge Calm

Seven Israelis and 30 Palestinians have been killed in the last two weeks.

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In the current wave of violence, eight Israelis have been killed in stabbing and shooting attacks.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state, together with Gaza and the West Bank.

The council is to hold a ministerial-level debate on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis on Thursday to try to press for a de-escalation.

Similar scenes played out in other parts of the occupied territories. He ordered an investigation and pledged to fix the damage.

The Palestinian foreign minister and United Nations envoy Riyad Mansour said the UNSC has a responsibility regarding the situation, which he said has become “very explosive”, as he called for immediate United Nations action to quell the violence.

Palestinians set fire to a Jewish shrine in the West Bank on Friday as the Islamist group Hamas called for a day of rage against Israel, and two weeks of turmoil in the region showed little signs of abating. They were pushed back by Palestinian security forces who arrived on site, but not before setting parts of it aflame.

“IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said: ‘The burning and desecration of Joseph’s tomb…is a blatant violation and contradiction of the basic value of freedom of worship”.

NBC News reports that in the early hours of Friday, hundreds of Palestinians entered the compound and set it on fire.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack.

A Palestinian man posing as a journalist has stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron.

It said the Palestinian attacker was shot dead in the incident in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba. “We absolutely reject such acts and any acts outside the law and order and that are offensive to our culture and our religion and our morals”, Abbas said in a statement published by WAFA, the Palestinian news agency.

What is happening between Israelis and Palestinians?

“Over time, the only way that Israel is going to be truly secure, and the only way the Palestinians will be able to meet the aspirations of their people, is if they are two states living side by side in peace and security”.

The Palestinian journalists union said the knife attacker had no links to any media outlets and urged Israel not to use the event as an excuse to attack its press members.

What’s behind the latest unrest?

Jordan has custodian rights over the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, Muslims’ third holiest site.

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For centuries, the site has been identified with the biblical Joseph but a few Palestinians say it was a sheikh’s grave or used as a mosque.

Palestinian with 'press' logo on shirt stabs soldier