He said he sought steps “that could calm things down a little bit so people aren’t living in absolute, daily terror that they might be stabbed or driven into or shot trying to walk around their city”.
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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.
The visit follows the deadliest week thus far of the outburst that erupted in mid-September over tensions surrounding a sensitive Jerusalem holy site and quickly spread across Israel and into the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Nineteen Israelis have been killed, mostly in stabbings; Israeli fire has killed 89 Palestinians. Others have been shot dead during protests or clashes with Israeli security forces. He last visited Israel and the Palestinian territories during fighting in Gaza three months later. Since early October, 22 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians.
According to Israeli Radio, Netanyahu told Kerry during their meeting that Israel had not – and would not – halt construction of Jewish-only settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“He (Kerry) showed understanding for Israel’s right to self-defense while ignoring the Palestinians’ right to defend themselves against Israel’s state terrorism and summary executions”, Aiatah told the Palestinian Khabar news agency.
A burial for an 18-year-old Israeli soldier who was stabbed to death yesterday by a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank came just hours after a 16-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead and her 14-year-old girl cousin wounded after they attacked pedestrians with scissors near West Jerusalem’s main food market.
Later today, Kerry is due to arrive in Jerusalem for talks with Netanyahu where he is expected to call on Israelis and Palestinians to make peace.
He, too, accused Kerry of siding with Israel and decried the US state secretary’s description of “lone-wolf” attacks by desperate Palestinians as acts of “terrorism”.
The body of an Israeli soldier, who was stabbed and killed by a Palestinian at a petrol station, is covered near the West Bank village of Khirbit Al-Misbah between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
America’s broader concerns are the same and Kerry nearly surely pressed both sides in private to avoid provocative actions.
Asked about media reports that Israel expected recognition of its building activities in existing settlements in exchange for issuing building permits for Palestinians, Toner said: “As to… those reports, I can be very clear that we’re not changing… the decades-old USA policy regarding settlements”.
In his recent meeting with President Obama, Netanyahu reaffirmed his commitment to the two-state solution.
Also speaking before their meeting, Netanyahu that the U.S. was “a friend in our common effort to restore stability, security and peace”. “The angry uprising of our people and the successive events of the recent period are an inevitable result of what we have cautioned about”.
Netanyahu said the global community should support Israel’s fight against terrorism, since the rest of the world is “experiencing this same assault by militant Islamists and the forces of terror”.
Palestinians have been threatening to stop the security coordination as a part of measures to reviewing the Palestinian-Israeli relations in protest of Israel’s non-abidance by the signed agreements as well as the frozen peace talks.
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Many of them have been young people, including teenagers, reflecting anger and lost hope over Israel’s occupation, the Palestinians’ fractured leadership and the complete lack of progress in peace efforts, some analysts say.
