According to sources informed, Palestinian intelligence chief Majed Faraj, Israeli domestic intelligence chief Shin Beth Ronen Bar, US President Joe Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk, as well as representatives from Jordan and Egypt will attend the meeting in Aqaba participate. A Jordanian government official said the aim of the meeting was to build trust between the two sides and calm the situation.
For months there have been repeated violent clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli army in the Palestinian territory. Two Israeli civilians were killed in the north of the West Bank on Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said the two civilians were shot dead in a “Palestinian terrorist attack”.
The shots hit a car at a checkpoint in Huwara, south of the city of Nablus. A medic with the Israel Rescue Service Magen David Adom said he treated two injured people who were lying unconscious near the car. A spokesman for the emergency services said the injured were pronounced dead at the hospital.
According to the Shomron Regional Administration, which administers the Israeli settlements in the area, the dead were two brothers, aged 20 and 22, from the nearby settlement of Har Bracha.
According to the Israeli army, soldiers were deployed after the fatal shooting in Huwara to “pursue the terrorists and cordon off the area”. As an AFP photographer reported, Israeli security forces searched vehicles on the road.
At least 11 people, including a 16-year-old boy, were killed in an Israeli army operation in Nablus on Wednesday, according to Palestinian sources. 80 people were injured. It was the bloodiest Israeli army operation in the West Bank since 2005. Several rockets were then fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday. The Israeli army then launched airstrikes on targets in the Palestinian territories.
