After the recent escalation in the Gaza conflict, world diplomacy is trying to consolidate the ceasefire that has been in force since last Friday.
American Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on his way to the region to support the efforts, President Joe Biden announced in Washington on Monday.
Israel threatened Hamas in Gaza with even harsher counter-attacks if the Islamist organization broke the ceasefire.
Blinken will travel to Jerusalem, Ramallah, Cairo and Amman at Biden's request, Washington said. By Thursday he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the Jordanian King Abdullah II. A senior US State Department official said Monday the focus in Blinken's trip was on keeping the ceasefire.
"We don't want to see a return to bloodshed," he said. "We are incredibly relieved that the violence has ended." It is now also important that the people in the Gaza Strip receive the support they need. It is still too early to take steps towards a real peace process. The United States would, however, continue to support a two-state solution to which the European Union (EU) is also committed.
The Egyptian Foreign Minister Samih Shukri met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Monday.
The two politicians discussed ways to revive the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, which has been on hold since 2014, announced the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in Cairo.
The country on the Nile brokered the ceasefire that came into force on Friday between Israel and the ruling Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The conflict escalated, among other things, after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and in the Arab east of the city.
Knife attack in Jerusalem
An incident in Jerusalem announced on Monday that the situation remained extremely tense. A 17-year-old Palestinian stabbed two Israelis at a light rail stop with a knife. The two men, aged 21 and 23 - one of them a soldier - suffered moderate injuries, according to the hospital. Police officers in the vicinity shot and killed the young attacker, police confirmed.
Israeli ministers affirmed, however, that Israel will in future react to any attack from the Palestinian territory much more severely than before. Finance Minister Israel Katz said Jihia al-Sinwar, Hamas chief in the Gaza Strip, would "pay with his head" for any attack. Al-Sinwar, who has headed Hamas in Gaza since 2017, did not appear during the most recent conflict, especially since he - like Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif - is likely to have been on the Israelis' list for targeted killings. He first appeared in public on Saturday when he paid condolences to the families of killed Hamas fighters.
The Hamas-controlled government agencies in the coastal strip have since resumed their work. The Israeli attacks were aimed at Hamas' military infrastructure, but also caused enormous damage to residential and high-rise buildings, health facilities and other public buildings. After the fourth Gaza war since 2008, the people of Gaza are faced with mountains of rubble. For this reason too, the UN Security Council recently insisted on rapid humanitarian aid for the civilian population.
The first deliveries of urgently needed medical equipment were expected immediately.
A spokesman for the Israeli agency Cogat said that the goods supplied by the UN should be transported via the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is actually closed.
Israel is concerned that aid supplies to the blocked coastal area could be misused to rearm Hamas, as was the case after the last Gaza war in 2014.
At a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, several thousand demonstrators called for a peaceful solution to the decades-old conflict with the Palestinians.
Thousands of people took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in numerous cities around the world on the same day, including in Berlin, London and Paris.
The demonstrators put up posters calling for "Freedom for Palestine", among other things.