Kerry says Israel has a right to defend itself!

Kerry told reporters traveling with him in the Middle East that the USA was prepared to re-engage in a serious peace effort, and said “we have ideas for how things could proceed”.

But there was no indication that any headway was made in his meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

In one of the resolutions, the United Nations condemned Israel for retaining the northern Golan Heights region, demanding that Israel hand that territory to Syria.

With U.S.-backed talks on a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territory frozen since early 2014, Netanyahu said there could be no peace while an “onslaught of terror” continued.

The United States rejected the notion of settlement recognition with “a big no”, a State Department spokesman said.

“Kerry did not carry any new ideas to solve the current crisis”, one PA official said.

The minister said Israel must find the Democratic balance between actions that would curb terrorism and the need to allow civilians on both sides to live out their lives in peace. “Israel has every right in the world to defend itself and it has an obligation to defend itself, and it will and it is”.

A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli in the neck in the southern West Bank today and was shot dead by forces at the scene, the army and a hospital said.

“There are extraordinary concerns, obviously, about the violence”, he added.

With Abbas, he focused on ways of calming the situation in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

“We remain hopeful that talks and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will resume soon, leading to a comprehensive peace process and an amicable resolution of the conflict”, PM Modi said in his message. When he met Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, he said the shootings and stabbings were a “challenge to all civilized people”. Mr. Kerry and his aides were careful to stress that this week’s trip wasn’t aimed at getting either side back to the table.

The source recounted that he had held exploratory talks in Cairo with Egyptian intelligence officials about a future role for the Egyptian army in the Palestinian security strategy, both in the West Bank and in Gaza. At least 89 Palestinians are killed, many while carrying out attacks and others in clashes with Israeli forces. Nineteen Israelis and an American have been killed in Palestinian attacks. Dozens of Palestinian children have been injured, arrested and brutally interrogated by Israeli forces.