Antony Blinken to meet Palestinian leaders amid round of deadly attacks

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is due to meet Palestinian leaders for his final stop on a Middle East tour that comes at a critical time, with Israel and Palestine reeling from a round of devastating attacks that threaten an explosion of violence.

After meeting the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem on Monday, Blinken travelled on Tuesday to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah for discussions with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh.

An Israeli operation in the Jenin refugee camp last week, one of its deadliest raids in the West Bank for decades, killed 10 Palestinians, mostly gunmen but also two civilians, including a 61-year-old woman. The next day, a Palestinian gunman killed seven Israelis outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem in the worst such attack in recent memory.

Nearly two dozen people have been killed in total over the past week, as heightened tensions have led to retaliatory attacks, including shootings, targeting Israelis and Palestinians.

Blinken called for “urgent steps to restore calm” but acknowledged it would be difficult. “We want to make sure that there’s an environment in which we can, I hope, at some point create the conditions where we can start to restore a sense of security for Israelis and Palestinians alike, which of course is sorely lacking,” he said after meeting Netanyahu.

Expectations that Washington’s top envoy can take the region off the path to more bloodshed are close to zero, with Blinken repeating the US government’s longstanding aspirations for a “two-state solution” in which Palestinians get their own country – an idea that is openly rejected by far-right figures in Israel’s newly installed government.

Blinken’s visit is instead seen as an attempt to contain the issue, as part of Joe Biden’s efforts to ensure the Israel-Palestinian crisis does not overshadow the US’s broader goals, particularly defeating Russia in Ukraine.

In Ramallah, Blinken is expected to urge Abbas to continue working with Israel on security issues, which were cut as a show of anger after the Jenin raid.

Abbas, however, has limited power and remains deeply unpopular among Palestinians, who accuse him of acting as a subcontractor for Israel to carry out its occupation. A new generation of frustrated and armed Palestinian militias unconnected to their increasingly isolated leaders is growing in power.

In Israel, the Netanyahu government’s response to the killings has been to propose new measures that further punish Palestinians, including making it easier to demolish the family homes of people who carry out attacks – a practice that has been widely condemned as collective punishment. The government also wants to make it easier for Israeli citizens to carry weapons.