Kerry to discuss Jerusalem terror wave with French FM

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will discuss the recent wave of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis with his US counterpart John Kerry on Wednesday, a French government spokesman said.

“There is an escalation (of violence) that France wants to combat,” said spokesman Stephane Le Foll, adding that Kerry and Fabius would discuss the situation in Jerusalem later in the day.

“The situation has strongly deteriorated and France will do all it can avoid an escalation,” he added.

Kerry said on Tuesday that he plans to travel soon to the region to try to calm violence between Palestinians and Israelis and move the situation “away from this precipice.”

“I will go there soon, at some point appropriately, and try to work to reengage and see if we can’t move away from this precipice,” Kerry said at an event sponsored by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The secretary of state also linked the round of violence to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank.

“There’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years,” Kerry said during a question-and-answer session, “and there’s an increase in the violence because there’s this frustration that’s growing.” Kerry noted that there was also “a frustration among Israelis who don’t see any end.”

Also on Tuesday, the White House’s press secretary said that the Obama administration strongly condemns Palestinian incitement and assaults against Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Press secretary Josh Earnest said “the US condemns in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attacks, the recent terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians which resulted in the murder of three Israelis and left numerous others wounded.” He said the US stressed the “importance of condemning violence and combating incitement.”

Earnest added that the administration was “deeply concerned” about the escalating violence and urged all sides to restore calm.

Jerusalem has seen a series of stabbing attacks by Palestinian terrorists and protests by Palestinians, often deteriorating to violent riots. Three Israelis were killed on Tuesday when two terrorists shot and stabbed passengers on a bus and another rammed a car into pedestrians and then tried stabbing them with a butcher’s knife.

France, home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel and the US, has condemned the violence as “extremely worrying and dangerous.” A large number of Jews from the country left over the past two years as radicalized citizens from the country’s Islamic population perpetrated a series of anti-Semitic attacks.