“Both sides have important decisions to make for the future and we obviously hope they make the choices that will advance the prospects for lasting peace,” he told reporters traveling with him at the end of a three-day trip to the Middle East that included his first visit to Israel and the West Bank in over a year.
The U.S. is urging the two sides to avoid provocative actions, including Israeli construction of new settlements and Palestinian incitement to violence. Mr. Kerry traveled to the Mideast on Tuesday to try to ease tensions amid a two-month wave of violence sparked by clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians at a holy site in Jerusalem.
But divisions remain between the U.S. and Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days announced tough new security measures for Palestinians in the West Bank and demanded in his meeting with Mr. Kerry on Tuesday that the U.S. recognize settlement construction in the West Bank in exchange for Israeli steps to calm tensions there.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner indicated that the U.S. answer to it is “a big no.”
“The U.S. government has never defended or supported Israeli settlements and activity associated with them and by extension does not pursue policies that would legitimize them,” Mr. Toner said Tuesday, without confirming Mr. Netanyahu’s demand. “And administrations of both parties have long recognized that settlement activity and efforts to change the facts on the ground undermine the goal of a two-state solution.”
Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday and later with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. Mr. Kerry condemned the violent attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and said Israel has “every right in the world to defend itself.”
After his meeting with Mr. Abbas, Mr. Kerry said he knows “that the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, in Gaza is, at this moment, very dire."
“There are extraordinary concerns, obviously, about the violence,” he added. He said he was dispatched to Israel and the West Bank by President Barack Obama to try to restore calm as well as public confidence in the viability of a two-state solution.
“We are committed to that, two states with two peoples living side by side in peace and security,” he said.
The White House has given up on reaching a comprehensive settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians before President Obama leaves office in 2017, and peace talks are unlikely to restart before then. Mr. Kerry and his aides were careful to stress that this week’s trip wasn’t aimed at getting either side back to the table.
The violence continued as Mr. Kerry was in Israel and the West Bank.
On Wednesday, a Palestinian attacked and stabbed a soldier near the West Bank city of Hebron, before security forces shot the assailant, Israeli military said. Both the soldier and the attacker were evacuated to hospital, where the Palestinian died from his wounds, Israeli health authorities said.
In total, Palestinians have killed 19 Israelis since Oct. 1, according to Israeli authorities. Israeli security forces have killed at least 80 Palestinians, the majority of whom were shot dead while allegedly attacking Israelis.
Mr. Netanyahu said this week he was authorizing beefing up security in the West Bank, stopping more cars and deploying additional forces. The Israeli government would also revoke work permits of Palestinian assailants’ family members who were eligible to work in Israel, he said.
The violence has ensnared some Americans, including Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year-old Yeshiva student from Mr. Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts, who was shot dead last week in the West Bank.
Mr. Kerry mentioned him twice by name while in Israel. Both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Obama placed condolence calls to his family this week.
The most recent round of violence began after clashes at the Temple Mount complex, known to Muslims at Haram Al-Sharif
Mr. Kerry last met with Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas in October in Berlin and Amman, Jordan, respectively, and will continue talks to calm tensions in coming weeks. He had pursued a nine-month peace process earlier in his tenure as secretary of state but it fell apart in April 2014.
Mr. Kerry last month helped broker a deal between Israeli and Jordanian officials to install security cameras at Temple Mount, for which technical talks are ongoing.
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