Nine Palestinians were wounded during fierce clashes with Israeli forces as two alleged Palestinian attackers attempted to board a bus carrying children west of Jerusalem Thursday, and stabbed an Israeli before being shot. One of the alleged attackers was killed, while the second was in critical condition. The two men were blocked from entering the bus in Beit Shemesh by the driver and others. They then stabbed and moderately wounded a 25-year-old Israeli man near the bus station, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Police did not provide further details on the bus, including whether it was a school bus. Police said the 20-year-old assailants were wearing T-shirts bearing the symbol of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Islamist movement Hamas. Israeli security forces said they were from the Palestinian village of Sureif, near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, and alleged one was a Hamas militant. Meanwhile, violent protests have erupted across the Palestinian territories, sparking fears of a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Nine Palestinians were wounded, including five from live fire, during clashes with Israeli soldiers in and around Hebron Wednesday night, Palestinian police said. Israel's military also said 58 Palestinians had been arrested since Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, including 16 Hamas members and those accused of unspecified "hostile activities" by the military. Separately Thursday in an area of the West Bank city of Hebron where Jewish settlers live, a Palestinian attempted to stab an Israeli soldier, police said. The soldier was not stabbed and the alleged attacker fled. Speaking to reporters after about four hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he thought there were steps that could reduce the violence and said they needed to be discussed with Jordanian and Palestinian officials. "I would characterize that conversation as one that gave me a cautious measure of optimism that there may be ... a way to defuse the situation and begin to find a way forward," Kerry told reporters after he met Netanyahu at a Berlin hotel. Kerry made no reference to Netanyahu's suggestion this week that Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem during the 1940s, persuaded Adolf Hitler to exterminate the Jews. Those comments have attracted wide criticism from Israeli opposition politicians and Holocaust experts, who accused the prime minister of distorting the historical record. The White House Thursday warned Netanyahu against "inflammatory rhetoric," responding sharply to the Israeli prime minister's controversial claim. White House spokesman Eric Schultz said, "I don't think there's any doubt here at the White House who is responsible for the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews. We believe that inflammatory rhetoric needs to stop." Earlier Thursday, the EU's top diplomat said the "Quartet" of Middle East peace mediators would meet in Vienna Friday to urge Israeli and Palestinian leaders to tone down their rhetoric and calm down the situation on the ground. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the Quartet would "pass a strong message to the parties to calm down the situation on the ground." Whatever immediate steps might be taken, diplomats hold out little hope for any resumption of broader Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which collapsed in 2014. A senior U.S. State Department official told reporters that Kerry hopes to persuade both sides to "tamp down" their rhetoric during a four-day trip to Europe and the Middle East in which he also plans to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II. King Abdullah II Thursday again warned Israel against any move to change the status quo at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, adding that "achievement of a just and comprehensive peace, on the basis of a two-state [Israeli and Palestinian] solution, is the only way out of the crisis in the region." Meanwhile, Israel accused the U.N.'s cultural body of fanning tensions in the region by approving a resolution that criticized the Jewish state for "aggressions" against Muslims seeking access to a Jerusalem holy site. The resolution also calls for the "prompt reconstruction of schools, universities, cultural heritage sites, cultural institutions, media centers and places of worship that have been destroyed or damaged by the consecutive Israeli wars on Gaza." The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the decision was "another step in the continuous Palestinian endeavor to rewrite history and distort the sources of World Heritage in this part of the world."
