The United Nations has expressed grave concern about the escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the UN condemned “the violence, any incitement to it, all ethnic divisions and provocations”.
The Arab League has held emergency consultations in the Egyptian capital Cairo on the violence in East Jerusalem and Gaza. The league called Israeli airstrikes “arbitrary and irresponsible”. The league’s chairman, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said Israel has triggered “the dangerous escalation” in East Jerusalem.
Riots have broken out in the city following a new attempt to evict Arab residents of an Arab neighbourhood in East Jerusalem to hand over their homes to Jewish settlers.
Protests against this led to massive protests last week, especially around the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip responded with rocket attacks on parts of Israel. Israel then carried out a series of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.