Mark Toner, a US State Department spokesman, said in a daily press briefing that Mr Kerry was likely to meet the Israeli prime minister, “probably” in Germany, but details of the trip were still being finalised.
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With this in mind, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Rizadh Mansour, urged intervention to end what he called “this aggression against our defenceless Palestinian people and against our shrines”.
The Hebron has been a flash point between the Israelis and the Palestinians. “Those mendacious allegations out there that somehow there’s a threat to the Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount; now this is baseless, this is ridiculous”, he said. Peace talks collapsed in 2014.
Palestine’s President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack.
A tinder-box for Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest in Judaism.
Zerihoun warned Israel that the current crisis can not be resolved by security measures alone.
Thirty-seven Palestinians have been killed, including alleged attackers, since an upsurge in violence began at the start of the month.
The site is located in an area under Palestinian self-rule and visits by Jews are coordinated between Palestinian security forces and Israeli troops.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate condemned the incident, saying it “exposes journalists’ lives to danger, gives the Israeli occupation a pretext to target and kill journalists, and restricts their ability to perform their professional and national duties”.
Jordan has custodianship of the al-Aqsa compound. The settlements are considered illegal under worldwide law, though Israel disputes this. “Such a presence would be a change in the status quo”.
But, reported Wafa, “witnesses and security sources” said that Kawasmeh was shot by the Israeli from the settlement of Beit Hadassah after the settler verbally abused and cursed him. A Palestinian teenager was shot dead in Jerusalem by police, who say he drew a knife on them.
Israel and Egypt have enforced a border blockade on Gaza, with varying degrees of severity, since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized the territory in 2007.
In Hebron, Israeli soldiers fatally shot a Palestinian man after he stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli soldier.
“Politicians and senior police officers have not only failed to act to calm the public climate of incitement, but on the contrary have openly called for the extrajudicial killing of [Palestinian] suspects”, the groups said.
The attack took place just a few meters from a Palestinian protest after Muslim noon prayers in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Three Palestinians were shot dead trying to stab Israelis in east Jerusalem and the West Bank on Saturday, as violence that has fuelled worldwide concerns of a full-scale uprising showed no let-up. The soldier was evacuated for emergency medical care.
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Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called for “rallies of anger and confrontations” on Friday in all West Bank cities.
