Egypt has stepped up mediation between Israel and the Palestinians in a bid to tamp down violence in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank and prevent its spread to the Gaza Strip ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Cairo hosted leaders from Gaza’s ruling Hamas Islamist militant group and from the smaller, allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group this week, according to officials.
Talks with Israeli representatives were held earlier, they said.
West Bank violence, which surged last year as Israel intensified raids following a series of lethal Palestinian street attacks in Israeli cities, has picked up pace since a hard-right Israeli government was sworn in on December 29.
Two Egyptian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Cairo believed the situation could further spiral out of control, especially given Palestinian sensitivities about Israeli control of access to Jerusalem during Ramadan, which begins in late March.
Egypt wanted the United States to appeal to Israel to help constrain an escalation of violence, the officials said.
Egypt, for its part, was appealing to the PIJ, which spurns direct contact with Israel.
“More than ever, the Egyptians are worried of a possible new armed confrontation in 2023 because they realise it would be hard to restrain actions by some ministers of the new extremist government in Israel,” a Palestinian official told Reuters.
Read the article by Nidal Al-Mughrabi in The Canberra Times.