Palestinians set fire to a Jewish shrine in the West Bank on Friday as the Islamist group Hamas called for a day of rage against Israel, with tensions still running high after two weeks of violence.
Israel’s military said about 100 people converged on the tomb of the biblical patriarch Joseph, located in the Palestinian city of Nablus. They were pushed back by Palestinian security forces who arrived on site, but not before setting parts of it ablaze.
“We view this incident with gravity and strongly condemn any attack on holy sites. We will find and arrest those who set the fire,” the military said in a statement.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, in his clearest call yet to end the renewed violence, condemned the attack. He ordered the damage to be repaired and opened an investigation into the arson.
A statement from his office said Mr Abbas “stressed his rejection of these actions and all actions that violate law and order, and which distort our culture, our morals and our religion”.
US secretary of state John Kerry will meet Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Germany next week to discuss the spate of violence in which 39 people have been killed, the Israeli ambassador to Washington said on Friday.
Mr Kerry, who has said he planned to go to the Middle East soon to try to calm the violence, was travelling to Europe on Friday.
Israel’s ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, confirmed the planned meeting in Germany during an interview with CNN.
“That discussion will be, ‘OK, how do we get back to where we were in order to calm things down?’ ” Mr Dermer said.
Earlier, a spokesman for German chancellor Angela Merkel said Mr Netanyahu will travel to Germany on Wednesday for talks with Ms Merkel on the security situation in Israel and the wider Middle East.
Mark Toner, a US State Department spokesman, said in a daily press briefing that Mr Kerry was likely to meet the Israeli prime minister, “probably“ in Germany, but details of the trip were still being finalised.
The Palestinian dead in the current bout of unrest include 10 knife-wielding assailants, police said, as well as children and protesters shot during violent demonstrations. A man died in Gaza on Friday from wounds sustained in a clash a week ago.
The Israelis who have died were killed in random attacks in the street or on buses. There was a respite from the near-daily attacks on Thursday.
The UN Security Council was to hold a special meeting to discuss the situation.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, had called for “rallies of anger and confrontations” on Friday in all West Bank cities.
The unrest has been triggered in part by Palestinians’ anger over what they see as increased Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is also revered by Jews as the location of two destroyed biblical Jewish temples.
The director-general of Israel’s foreign ministry, Dore Gold, said: “The burning of Joseph’s tomb forcefully demonstrates what would happen in the holy places in Jerusalem if they were in the hands of the Palestinian leadership.”
Reuters