New Spate of Terror Attacks in West Bank and Israel

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Ahead of Kerry’s trip, a Palestinian on Monday fatally stabbed an Israeli soldier at a West Bank gas station before security forces killed him. It was the latest in a spate of violence that has sunk the chances of a renewed peace push during the Obama administration’s final year. But he made no mention of reviving peace talks.

“Israel has every right in the world to defend itself, and has an obligation to defend itself”.

Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudaina said the meeting lasted for two hours.

None of the leaders themselves offered any encouragement that peace might be possible right now.

The prime minister added: “There can be no peace when we have an onslaught of terror – not here or not anywhere else in the world, which is experiencing this same assault by militant Islamists and the forces of terror”.

Eighteen Israelis have been killed, mostly in stabbings, since mid-September. Other Palestinian fatalities have occurred in clashes with troops in the West Bank or in cross-border violence in Gaza.

Nineteen Israelis and more than 90 Palestinians, many of them assailants, have been killed in weeks of unrest.

Nevertheless, despite the inertia of inaction and the push for unilateral annexation, there is still substantial support for preserving the two-state solution from Israeli governmental institutions, the Knesset and grassroots Israeli organizations. The visit includes no such ambitious agenda, the chief US diplomat conceded, and is primarily focused on ending the terror.

Speaking before the Committee, regarding the celebration of the global Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Eliasson said on behalf of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, that he was sorry about the situation of the occupied people.

An Israeli official said Netanyahu complained to Kerry about alleged Palestinian incitement and said any confidence-building gestures for the Palestinians would first require calm.

At a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kerry expressed his full support for Israel against what he described as the ongoing wave of Palestinian “terrorist” attacks on Israeli civilians.

During his speech to the General Assembly, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Danny Danon displayed a composite photo of Israeli victims of terror and stated: “This is a shameful day for the UN”.

Palestinians were being allowed to travel on the area’s roads but not enter the settlements, which are gated and guarded, a military spokeswoman said, without being able to say how long the measure would be in place.

He added that the Palestinians believe that there was no breakthrough in the conflict or the Palestinian choices offered to the USA authorities.

The drama that unfolded on Jaffa Road, a main thoroughfare between East and West Jerusalem, had a complicated plot in a city where Arabs and Jews live and work in close proximity and identities are sometimes blurred.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that he is in Israel to talk about how to “restore calm”.

Palestinians have been threatening to stop the security coordination as a part of measures to reviewing the Palestinian-Israeli relations in protest of Israel’s non-abidance by the signed agreements as well as the frozen peace talks. He met with the two leaders last month, in Europe and in Jordan, in an earlier attempt to halt the current round of fighting.

Kerry’s broader concerns haven’t changed, however, and he is likely to ask both sides to avoid provocative actions. For the Israelis, that means holding off on construction of new settlements in lands the Palestinians seek for their future state.

This week, a Palestinian radio station playing music that glorified violence was forcibly closed.