At a checkpoint near Nablus, Israeli paramilitary police shot dead a Palestinian who they said had charged at them with a knife. Eli Bin, the head of Israel’s rescue service MDA, told Israeli media that the Israeli was moderately wounded.
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With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nodding, Kerry said Israel had a right and obligation to defend itself and that “no people anywhere should live with daily violence, with attacks in the streets with knives, with scissors, with cars”.
Attacks by Palestinians have killed 19 Israelis over this time period and 89 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, among them 57 said by Israel to be assailants.
In his talks with Kerry, Netanyahu told him that civilian Palestinian projects would be allowed to advance only when Israel experienced a “return of the quiet”, an Israeli official said.
Since October, Israel has condemned Palestinian “terrorism” (i.e. all forms of resistance to Israeli occupation) through collective punishment.
“The U.S. government has never defended or supported Israeli settlements and activity associated with them and by extension does not pursue policies that would legitimize them”, Mr. Toner said Tuesday, without confirming Mr. Netanyahu’s demand. With statehood we will be in charge of security in the West Bank and Gaza and we will do it better than the Israelis. Others have died in clashes with security forces.
Kerry was scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and opposition leader Isaac Herzog before traveling to Ramallah, in the West Bank, to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli military officers, as well as foreign observers, have credited Palestinian security forces with containing some of the violence with pre-emptive arrests of potential attackers. Furthermore, construction permits for Palestinians are conditional on worldwide recognition of building in the Israel settlement blocs in the West Bank.
Despite heightened security, according to a senior military officer, the army has proposed easing restrictions on Palestinians and providing ammunition to Palestinian security forces to help ease tensions and avert attacks by militants.
The two deaths were the latest in a two-month wave of violence.
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But he left without a concrete breakthrough and said he would continue to press both leaders on the issue in coming weeks. He said Abbas’s official television station should be shuttered. A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier and was shot dead.
