Top US diplomat John Kerry mounted a diplomatic push on Thursday to calm surging tensions in Jerusalem through meetings in Jordan with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Hours after the secretary of state held talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Amman, officials announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would also join the diplomatic flurry.
"They will focus on ways to restore calm and de-escalate tensions in Jerusalem," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said of the planned three-way talks between Kerry, Netanyahu and Jordan's king. It came hours after fresh clashes broke out in east Jerusalem where Israeli police fired tear gas, percussion bombs and rubber bullets to disperse Palestinian demonstrators. Months-long unrest in annexed east Jerusalem has in recent days spread to the occupied West Bank and Arab communities across Israel, raising fears of a new Palestinian uprising.
On Wednesday Israel approved plans for another 200 settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem - a move sharply criticised by Washington. Kerry and a sombre-looking Abbas embraced and had a brief whispered exchange as they met at the Palestinian leader's hillside villa in Amman where the US and Palestinian flags hung in front of a large night-time photo of Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque.
Much of the unrest in Jerusalem has been fuelled by Israeli moves to step up settlement activity in the city's eastern sector and by religious tensions at the Al-Aqsa compound, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews. Earlier, a tense confrontation erupted in the city's Issawiya neighbourhood as about 100 residents, including schoolchildren, tried to block a main road after police closed off several neighbourhood entrances with concrete blocks. Kerry also met Jordan's King Abdullah II who called for Israel "to put an end to its unilateral action and repeated attacks against holy sites in Jerusalem, especially those targeting the Al-Aqsa mosque compound," a palace statement said.
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