By Abdel-Raouf Arnaout
JERUSALEM
Quartet envoy Tony Blair on Wednesday expressed concern over the recent escalation of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
"The international community wants to see a complete halt to violence of all kinds, an absolute respect of and adherence to traditional, agreed practices at the holy sites… and, most important of all, an early resumption of credible political negotiations," Blair said in a Wednesday statement released by his East Jerusalem office.
"The leadership of both sides must call for restraint and an end to hostile and provocative acts," said the envoy of the Quartet, which groups the U.S., the EU, the UN and Russia.
Tension has been running high in the region since late last month, when Israeli authorities temporarily closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem after an extremist Jewish rabbi was injured in a drive-by shooting in West Jerusalem.
Unrest mounted further after Israeli forces killed a young Palestinian man suspected of shooting the rabbi in a raid on his East Jerusalem home.
Further aggravating the situation, several Israeli MPs have entered the Al-Aqsa complex in recent weeks, drawing the ire of Muslim worshippers and official condemnation from Arab and Muslim countries.
On Monday, an Israeli girl was killed when a Palestinian man stabbed three Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
The attack came shortly after an Israeli soldier was injured after being stabbed near a Tel Aviv train station by a Palestinian from the Askar refugee camp in the West Bank.
The stabbing attacks came a few days after an Israeli baby was killed when a Palestinian driver plowed into a group of Israeli pedestrians in West Jerusalem.
And last week, an Israeli police officer was killed in a similar vehicular attack in East Jerusalem.
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