Ban Ki-moon speaks to the media in Jerusalem yesterday.

Ban Ki-moon warns Israelis and Palestinians they must act quickly to calm unrest before it spirals further out of control

Reuters
Jerusalem



UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Palestinians and Israel yesterday to step back from a “dangerous abyss” as he arrived on a snap visit to the region at the head of international efforts to quell three weeks of violence.
The bloodshed began with a string of stabbing attacks on Israelis in Jerusalem. One reason given by Palestinians for the violence is anger over perceived Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque.
Speaking moments after arriving, Ban said the wave of unrest was undermining Palestinian hopes for statehood and Israel’s longing for security.
“This conflict has gone on for far too long,” he said. “We must, for the future of our children, come back from this dangerous abyss, safeguard the two-state solution and lead people back onto the road towards peace.”
Ban, whose trip was announced in Israel only hours before his arrival, later met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. He will see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah today, Palestinian officials said. Ban said he will also meet in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah tomorrow.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who said he will hold talks with Netanyahu either in the Middle East or this week in Germany, has said Israeli and Palestinian leaders need to clarify the status of Al Aqsa compound to stop the violence.
Kerry planned to meet Abbas and King Abdullah, probably in Amman, later this week.
Palestinians are fuming at what they see as increased Jewish visits to the Al Aqsa plaza, where non-Muslim prayer has been banned for centuries. Israel insists it has made no changes to the rules at the site.
Perhaps showing how far apart the sides are, Netanyahu said at the start of his meeting with Ban:
“President Abbas has joined ISIS and Hamas in claiming that Israel threatens the Al Aqsa mosque. This, Mr Secretary, is a total lie. Israel vigorously protects the holy sites of all faiths. We keep the status quo.”
Under long-standing arrangements, Islamic religious authorities administer Al Aqsa. Israel allows Jews to visit but not pray in the compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City, which it captured along with other parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.
Abbas said Palestinians were also increasingly frustrated with the failure of peace talks to secure themselves a state. The last round of negotiations collapsed in April 2014.
“Our youth is pressured and desperate over the Israeli government’s failure and the absence of any political future that would provide hope of a fair and just peace allowing our people to be independent beside the state of Israel,” Abbas said in Ramallah.
In the latest deadly incident, a Palestinian vehicle ran over and killed an Israeli motorist who a Reuters photographer said was using a club to hit Palestinian protesters and cars on a roadside in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli police said the man had stopped his car after stones were thrown at it.
The driver of the Palestinian vehicle, which the photographer said the Israeli had hit with his club, later turned himself in to Palestinian police, which had no comment on the event. Israeli police said it was not immediately clear if the Israeli had been run over deliberately.
About two hours later, another Palestinian rammed his car into a bus stop near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, injuring two people, the Israeli military said. It said the man then got out of the vehicle and tried to stab people before being shot by security forces. Police said he had been killed.
Earlier, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli officer in the West Bank before other troops shot the assailant, the Israeli military said. The Palestinian health ministry said he was killed.
In Gaza, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian militant close to the border fence, the Israeli military said.

Related Story