Blinken calls for ‘urgent steps’ to restore peace between Israel and Palestine

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Israel and the Palestinians to ease tensions after a spike in violence has left the region on edge.

The bloodshed has alarmed the Biden administration as it attempts to reach an agreement with the new right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But beyond calls for de-escalation and restraint, Blinken did not publicly offer any specific ideas to calm the situation and it was not immediately clear from his meeting with Netanyahu that the government would propose any.

Blinken will meet Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday.

“We urge all parties to take urgent steps to restore calm, to de-escalate de-escalation,” he said after meeting with Netanyahu.

“We want to make sure that there is an environment where, I hope at some point, we can create conditions where we can begin to restore a sense of security for both Israelis and Palestinians, which is, of course, sorely lacking.”

Blinken arrived during one of the deadliest periods of fighting in years in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

An Israeli military raid killed 10 Palestinians in the West Bank flashpoint town of Jenin on Thursday, while a Palestinian gunman killed seven outside a synagogue in an East Jerusalem settlement on Friday.

The next morning, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot and wounded two Israelis elsewhere in East Jerusalem.

For more information, watch Euronews’ report in the video above.