The Palestinian health ministry identified the alleged assailant as Issa Tarayra, 16, from Bani Naim.
Advertisement
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations refugee summit in NY on Monday night, Mr Ayrault said: “This week must be a moment of political mobilisation that we can reach that goal.”His comments came less than two weeks after the Russian Foreign Ministry said Palestinian and Israeli leaders had agreed “in principle” to peace talks in Moscow”.
Since Friday, Israeli security forces have reported at least nine knifing and auto ramming attacks on targets in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The surge in violence comes two weeks before the start of holidays marking the Jewish new year. Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Israel’s Army Radio that security forces have been bracing for an escalation, anticipating that the Jewish holidays might inspire a wave of lone wolf violence like the string of stabbings, auto attacks, and shootings that started during the same period previous year.
“Instead of focusing on Palestinian terror and incitement, and instead of compelling [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table, the secretary-general chose to criticize Israel once again”, he continued.
“In a world that left the age of empire behind, we see Russian Federation attempting to recover lost glory through force”, he said.
In addition to meeting Obama on Wednesday afternoon, and Ban the next day, Netanyahu will also meet with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and a number of still unnamed African leaders.
The spike has spurred the military to send troop reinforcements to the West Bank.
As many as 88 US senators on Monday signed a bipartisan letter urging President Barack Obama to veto any “one-sided” United Nations Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the coming months.
Israel says that most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.
Israeli border police officers stand guard near the scene of a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s old city, Monday, Sept. 19, 2016.
“People in this town who are in favor of a productive peace process – those who want to see the Israelis and the Palestinians living side by side in peace – are anxious and I think the idea is that if President Obama is contemplating such a move now, that needs to be discouraged”, May concluded.
Israel’s government maintains that Palestinian stasis on the peace process is not simply a matter of the continued control of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, a terrorist group, but because even the relatively moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank is not prepared to make critical concessions.
Advertisement
Mitnick is a special correspondent.
