Blinken urges Israel-Palestinian calm as violence soars

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel and the Palestinians on Monday to ease tensions amid a spike in violence that has put the region on edge. The bloodshed has alarmed the Biden administration as it attempts to find common ground with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new right-wing government.

Speaking on his arrival at Israel's international airport near Tel Aviv after a brief visit to Egypt, Blinken said he had come at “a pivotal moment” and condemned Palestinian attacks that have targeted Israeli citizens but also called for restraint in response, saying that all civilian casualties are deplorable.

“To take an innocent life in an act of terrorism is always a heinous crime but to target people outside their place of worship is especially shocking,” he said, referring to an attack on Friday that killed seven people, many of whom were leaving a Jerusalem synagogue.

“We condemn it in the strongest terms,” he said. “We condemn all those who celebrate these and any other acts of terrorism that take civilian lives no matter who the victim is or what they believe. Calls for vengeance against more innocent victims are not the answer. And acts of retaliatory violence against civilians are never justified.”

The latest spate of violence erupted last week with an Israeli military raid on a militant stronghold in the West Bank city of Jenin last week that killed 10 people, most of them militants, followed by the shooting in an east Jerusalem Jewish settlement that killed seven Israelis.