US Secretary of state to
"evaluate" next steps with President Obama as he warns there are
"limits" to Washington's time.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has
said he would "evaluate" the next steps in the Middle East peace
process with President Barack Obama, warning there are "limits" to
Washington's time.
"This is not open-ended,"
Kerry told a news conference in Rabat, Morocco, on Friday, adding that it was
"reality check" time after negative Israeli and Palestinian moves.
Kerry urged Israeli and Palestinian
leaders on Thursday to prevent the negotiations from collapsing before their
scheduled end on April 29.
He said it was regrettable that both
sides had taken steps recently that were not helpful in promoting peace and
ending the decades-long conflict between the two sides.
But Palestinian president Mahmoud
Abbas rejected his appeals to withdraw the applications he signed on Tuesday to
adhere to 15 international treaties, a Palestinian official cited by the AFP
news agency said.
And Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli
prime minister, ignored appeals to refrain from "unhelpful"
tit-for-tat moves, asking officials to draw up a range of tough reprisals,
Israeli media reported.
However, Kerry said that both parties
were still willing to talk, but the US would not "sit there
indefinitely".
He plans to return to Washington on
Friday after a lengthy trip to Europe and the Middle East. Kerry has been
conducting more than a year of intensive shuttle diplomacy trying to broker
Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Cancelled promise
On Thursday, Israel announced that it
will not release a fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners because of renewed
Palestinian efforts to join international organisations.
Israel had promised to free 104
veteran Palestinian prisoners in four tranches, and in exchange, Ramallah
pledged to freeze all moves to seek membership in UN organisations until April
2014.
But Palestinians were enraged when
Israel refused to release the final 26 prisoners.
As news of the cancellation broke,
Palestinians in Gaza fired four rockets into southern Israel, prompting
retaliatory air strikes early on Friday by Israel, according to the AFP news
agency. No casualties were reported on either side.
Gaza security officials said seven
targets were hit by Israel in three locations, including training sites used by
the ruling Hamas armed rebel group. The officials - who spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the press - said four
Hamas members and two others were injured.
Al Jazeera's Nick Shifrin, reporting
from Jerusalem, said hundreds of Palestinians had confronted the Israeli army
on Friday near the military prison of Ofer, which is south of Ramallah, the
West Bank capital, but Israeli forces had fired tear gas and rubber bullets to
disperse the protesters.
The protesters were planning to pray
by the prison in solidarity with prisoners. At least three Palestinians were
injured.
Source: Al Jazeera
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