US starts mediation to stop escalation: Palestinian official

RAMALLAH, Palestine

The US has begun mediation to stop the Israeli escalation in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, a Palestinian official said.

"American security and political crews will start talking, on Wednesday, with the Palestinian and Israeli sides, separately, in order to stop the escalation," Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, told Anadolu.

"The American mediation is working to identify the core issues related to unilateral Israeli measures,” he said.

Al-Majdalani, who is also minister of social development, stressed that the Palestinian measures and decisions that it recently took are still in place and continuing unless a satisfactory agreement and real guarantees are reached for a specific period of time.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently announced a halt in security coordination with Israel.

"The main goal now is to stop the deterioration and return to a specific, tangible de-escalation within a specific time frame, after which (the Palestinians) evaluate the situation and decide if they will continue to extend the truce to open a political horizon that leads to ending the occupation," the official added.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. He reiterated Washington's support for a two-state solution to end the decades-long conflict. The meeting was preceded by other meetings with Israeli officials.

Blienken’s visit comes amid rising violence in the Palestinian territories following an Israeli military operation in Jenin on Thursday that left at least 10 Palestinians dead. In the wake of the operation, two shootings in Jerusalem claimed the lives of seven Israelis.

*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat