Kerry to Netanyahu: Let’s Work Together to Fight Palestinian Terrorism and

And a Palestinian rammed his vehicle into a pedestrian near a West Bank settlement, lightly wounding him. The Palestinians and the European Union have been clamoring for permits to build industrial, residential and commercial projects in Area C for months and even years.

A U.S. recognition of Israel’s continued control over the “settlement blocs” could help restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, said former military Intelligence Chief General Ya’acov Amidror. He also added that there would be no additional settlement freeze. In practice, Netanyahu said, the civilian projects that the Palestinians are interested in will only be possible if the level of violence is lowered and Israel’s security needs are met.

U.S. officials said they were not expecting to strike any new agreement on a return to peace talks during Kerry’s visit, and would simply try to walk the parties back from the immediate violence.

During this meeting, too, Kerry voiced his condemnation of what he described as Palestinian “terrorism”.

“No one in the world should live with attacks in the streets with knives, with scissors, cars”, Kerry asserted.

After those comments, senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi condemned Netanyahu for “cynically exploiting” the Paris attacks “to create a misleading linkage and to justify Israeli state terror against the Palestinian people, while presenting Israel as the victim”. It was in everyone’s interest to work together against the violence “interrupting too much of the daily life of too many nations”, he said.

“It is not only our battle, it is everyone’s battle”. “It’s a battle of civilization against barbarism”.

Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida said four human rights organizations submitted a file on Israeli war crimes committed during the 2014 onslaught on Gaza, to the International Criminal Court, WAFA reported. Khatib also said that Abbas will ask Kerry to pressure Israel to ease restrictions on freedom of movement for Palestinians. “It was lengthy and all issues presented by the Palestinian side in NY and Amman with Kerry were discussed during this meeting in depth”.

The current spate of violence 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. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton made unsuccessful attempts at brokering a two-state solution during their final months in office.

Three Palestinians – including a teenage girl – and an Israeli soldier died on Monday in the latest violence.

Palestinians blame the upswing in violence on the near 50-year Israeli occupation of the West Bank, a lack of progress toward a Palestinian state and a growing sense of despair and frustration amongst youth. Meanwhile, Kerry affirmed his country’s position, which supports a two-state solution.

On Sunday, a 21-year-old Israeli woman was stabbed to death by a Palestinian in the West Bank, and last Thursday, five people were killed in stabbing and shooting attacks in the West Bank and Tel Aviv. They are the same people we are supposed to give better lives to.

Hamas representative Sami Abu Zuhri said in an emailed press statement that it doesn’t welcome Kerry, calling upon the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to boycott his visit because it’s an “insult to the martyrs and a provocation to the Palestinian people”.

The militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement said the attack, near the city of Nablus, was “a heroic response to John Kerry plans to abort the intifada [Palestinian uprising]”.