Kerry meets with Netanyahu, urges incitement to halt

Kerry, his voice hoarse after an overnight flight and the lengthy talks, told reporters that he planned to raise the proposals with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah in meeting Saturday in Jordan’s capital, Amman.

Netanyahu headed to Germany on Thursday, for separate meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The aim is to stop the current violence and reinforce the status quo at the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli leader had entered talks with Kerry in an unyielding mode, accusing Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas of inciting the wave of attacks.

The upsurge began last month when tensions at a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem revered by Jews and Muslims boiled over amid rumours Israel planned to relax long-standing rules to strengthen Jewish rights at the complex.

It also called for “maximum restraint and avoidance of provocative rhetoric and actions”. Although State Department spokesman John Kirby wouldn’t criticize Netanyahu for incitement, he said of the Holocaust comments, “The scholarly evidence does not support that position”.

The incident, west of Jerusalem, was the latest in a wave of violence in Israel and the West Bank in recent weeks.

A military spokeswoman told AFP the stabbed soldier was a Bedouin tracker who had opened a gate to enable Palestinians to harvest their olive trees.

According to emergency services, 65 people, including three journalists, were hit by Israeli fire in the blockaded Gaza Strip. Earlier this week, the secretary made his first move, suggesting that there needed to be “clarity” about the fact that there has been no change in the arrangements at the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

An Israeli soldier shot and killed a Jewish man he suspected was a Palestinian “terrorist” in Jerusalem, police said Thursday, in a reflection of the jittery mood that has gripped Israelis amid a spate of near-daily Palestinian stabbing attacks.

Also speaking at the Security Council meeting, Israel’s new United Nations envoy Danny Danon accused Palestinians of carrying out “unprovoked attacks against Israelis for no reason other than the fact that they are Jews living in their historic homeland”.

The Israeli, a 25-year-old man, was moderately injured, police said.

“Of course it is better but there are still checkpoints and searches”.

Whatever immediate steps might be taken, diplomats hold out little hope for any resumption of broader Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which collapsed in 2014. Muslims view age restrictions as part of a perceived Israeli attempt to expand its presence at the site, a claim Israel has repeatedly denied.

It is managed by the Jordanian-run Waqf but Israel controls access.

Palestinian security forces identified the assailant as Mussab Ghanimat, 17, from the nearby village of Sureif.

Amid more violence on the ground on Thursday, four men appeared in court in connection with the beating of an Eritrean migrant, who was shot by a security guard and attacked by a crowd that mistook him for a gunman.

What is happening between Israelis and Palestinians?

Mohammed, 29, who was attending prayers at Al-Aqsa, laid the blame on the Israelis.