The violence erupted a month ago, fueled by rumors that Israel was plotting to take over a sensitive Jerusalem holy site revered by both Jews and Muslims.
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The decision, which allows all Muslim worshippers to attend Friday prayers, comes as Israel faces growing global pressure to defuse a crisis which many fear heralds a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
According to a spokesman from the US State Department, Kerry will seek practical ways to end the violence that has seen at least 48 Palestinians and nine Israelis killed.
Palestinians are also frustrated by the failure of numerous rounds of peace talks to secure them an independent state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. On Friday, the main day of Muslim prayer, Israeli police lifted age restrictions for the first time since the current round of violence began in mid-September.
Stabbings and shootings mostly have been carried out by “lone wolf” attackers, many of them teenagers.
Police say two Palestinians stabbed an Israeli man in the city of Beit Shemesh after attempting to board a bus ferrying children to school.
Noting the video monitoring, Kerry said it would provide “comprehensive visibility and transparency, and that could really be a game-changer in discouraging anybody from disturbing the sanctity of this holy site”. The site is the third-holiest in Islam and the holiest to Jews, who call it Temple Mount.
Israel has repeatedly denied Palestinian allegations that it is trying to change the status quo and accused Palestinian political and religious leaders of lying and inciting to violence.
Netanyahu on Wednesday urged the worldwide community to tell Abbas to stop “incitement” of what he condemned as terrorism.
“We have to do everything to calm down the situation and in this spirit I think all sides need to make a contribution”, she said.
Israel’s military on Friday said Israeli troops shot a Palestinian after he stabbed a soldier near the Jewish settlement of Gush Etzion south of Jerusalem.
“It is absolutely critical to end all incitement and all violence and find a road forward”, Kerry said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), a Republican presidential contender, expressed solidarity with Israelis experiencing an “escalation of Palestinian terrorism” in an October 8 statement read into the Congressional Record.
The men, from a West Bank town near Hebron, were both wearing t-shirts bearing the logo of the Hamas armed wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, according to the Israel Police.
The Israeli military says a suspected Palestinian attacker has been shot dead. Elsewhere, Muslim prayers at Jerusalem’s holiest site, which h…
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Regev said that the president of the Palestinian association is spearheading a campaign of libel and incitement. The Haaretz daily said a 4-year-old girl sustained burns on 35 percent of her body while her sister and mother were lightly wounded. When an Arab citizen of Israel opened fire at a bus station in southern Israel on Sunday, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding several people, a private security guard shot an Eritrean migrant he thought was an attacker.
