After meeting Israeli officials in Jerusalem, the U.S. secretary of state will meet the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah amid a sharp rise in tensions in the region.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken headed to the occupied West Bank on Tuesday to meet with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in the final stop of a whirlwind effort to help ebb a spasm of tensions in the region.
The two are to meet in Ramallah, the authority’s administrative hub, after one of the deadliest months in the West Bank in several years. More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in January, mostly during Israeli military raids aimed at quelling a growing insurgency and arresting Palestinian gunmen.
The violence has also seeped into Jerusalem, where a Palestinian attacker shot dead seven civilians outside a synagogue in an Israeli settlement on Sunday night — the worst attack in the city since 2008 — amid fears of an even worse escalation in coming weeks.
The meeting comes a day after Mr. Blinken met in Jerusalem with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and called on both Israelis and Palestinians to reduce tensions.
Mr. Blinken’s meeting with Mr. Abbas is likely to be tense. Palestinian officials say they hope Mr. Blinken will announce a new approach to ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 and where hundreds of thousands of Israelis have since settled alongside millions of Palestinians.
But Mr. Blinken is likely to repeat familiar talking points, including support for the concept of establishing a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli one, but avoid announcing practical steps toward that goal, such as the revival of peace negotiations that halted nearly a decade ago.
Distracted by other global challenges, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and amid Israeli opposition to Palestinian sovereignty as well deep rifts in Palestinian society, the Biden administration has not prioritized the restoration of the peace process.
Mr. Blinken is expected to push the Palestinian leadership to help reduce tensions in the West Bank, which in 2022 saw the highest Palestinian death toll — more than 170 were killed, often during Israeli operations to arrest gunmen — in more than half a decade.
Speaking in Jerusalem on Monday, Mr. Blinken said that he would tell Mr. Abbas, as he had Mr. Netanyahu, that it was “incumbent on all parties to take urgent steps to de-escalate tension and establish conditions for the security and stability that both Israelis and Palestinians deserve.”