“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”, Obama said.
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Elsewhere on Saturday, an Israeli pedestrian shot and killed a Palestinian who tried to stab him in the West Bank city of Hebron, a frequent flashpoint where a few hundred Jewish settlers live in close proximity to tens of thousands of Palestinians.
In the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, an Israeli settler shot dead a youth and a female Israeli soldier shot dead a woman.
The guard shot and wounded the man, then killed him after the man tried again to stab him, the Israeli military claimed.
A day earlier, Netanyahu appeared to take a swipe at the Obama administration and others who have urged both sides to stop the violence in Israel – saying the country’s “friends” should not “draw false symmetry” between Israeli victims and Palestinian attackers.
An Israeli border policeman fires projectiles with rubber-coated bullets during clashes with Palestinians near Ramallah, West Bank, Friday, October 16, 2015.
But he added that Israel has a right to enforce the law to defend its citizens against violence amid the latest wave of Palestinian attacks on Jews throughout the week that has prompted a crackdown by Israeli forces.
Palestinians for months have been accusing Israel of seeking to change a long-standing agreement governing prayer access to a key holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Saturday also saw attempted stabbings against Israeli security forces in Jerusalem and at the Qalandiya checkpoint outside the capital.
Video from the scene showed flames leaping into the air above the small stone structure; Palestinian security forces put out the fire.
Abbas has been under pressure over recent comments that a few have labelled incitement and has called for peaceful protests without explicitly condemning the violence.
At the 15-member council meeting’s emergency session, a call was made for an worldwide protection force to be deployed in east Jerusalem to quell violence around the al-Aqsa mosque.
Israel says it is keeping the status quo at the holy compound. This has left many Palestinians increasingly frustrated because all paths to independence appear blocked.
The US Secretary of State John Kerry has said he plans to travel to the Middle East soon in an attempt to calm the tensions.
Palestinian protestors torched a site revered by Jews in the West Bank overnight in an incident that threatened to further inflame over two weeks of deadly unrest, as fresh protests were planned for Friday.
“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”.
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Washington (CNN)President Barack Obama condemned recent violence in Israel on Friday and reiterated that a two-state solution is the best answer to continued unrest.
