Media concentration affects democracy says Atilio Boron

Egypt calls for calm after Israeli attack and Palestinian response

The State Department issued a statement condemning a shooting in Jerusalem last night that killed seven Israelis and the Palestinian attacker, while calling for self-restraint.

In this regard, he warned that the situation could trigger a vicious cycle of violence that would worsen the political and humanitarian panorama and hamper efforts to revive the peace process.

Yesterday a Palestinian named Fadi Ayash killed seven people near the Ateret Avraham synagogue in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood and was later shot dead by police.

Palestinian militias claimed the attack was in response to the killing of nine people in the Jenin refugee camp a day earlier after an operation by the Tel Aviv army.

The military invasion of Jenin was also denounced by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

We call for the immediate cessation of these operations because they threaten to spark a conflagration in the West Bank, the State Department warned at the time.

In a phone call a few days ago, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry called his Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen to avoid an escalation in the region.

Earlier this year, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and asked him to return to the negotiating table with the Palestinians.

In the first 28 days of this year, Israeli security forces killed 31 Palestinians, according to the official WAFA news agency.

The press office said settlers and uniformed soldiers from the neighboring state killed 224 Palestinians in the occupied territories in 2022, most of them in the West Bank.

rgh/rob