The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has accused Israel of igniting a “religious war” by allowing rightwing Jewish religious activists to visit a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem.
His remarks – made during a ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat – came amid continuing clashes in Israel and the West Bank which on Tuesday saw Israeli troops shoot dead a Palestinian demonstrator near the city of Hebron.
Abbas’s comments mark the latest salvo as senior Israeli political figures and Palestinians blame each other for provoking recent violence and daily clashes.
The violence in the last three weeks – which has included four deadly attacks and an attempted assassination – has been exacerbated by tension over Israeli-controlled access to Jerusalem’s holiest site, revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where al-Aqsa mosque stands, and by Jews as the mount where ancient Jewish temples once stood.
Under a longstanding arrangement Jews are allowed to visit during certain hours but not to pray at the site – an arrangement high-profile activists, including some MPs in the Israeli parliament, would like to change.
Abbas’s remarks also came as Israel tightened security nationwide after a 20-year-old soldier and a 26-year-old woman were killed on Monday in separate Palestinian knife attacks in Tel Aviv and in the occupied West Bank.
“We ask you [Israel] to keep settlers and extremists far away from al-Aqsa mosque and our holy places,” Abbas said on Tuesday, following recent visits to the site by far-right Israeli MPs. “Keep them away from us and we’ll stay away from them.”
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, convened his security cabinet to consider how to deal with the escalating tensions.
The Israeli military said soldiers had killed a 21-year-old Palestinian man at a refugee camp after coming under attack by a crowd hurling petrol bombs and stones. Residents said he was on his roof, away from the clashes, when he was shot.
Confrontations also erupted in at least two other West Bank areas, where the army said soldiers had shot and wounded two Palestinians.
The violence has raised Israeli concern that a new uprising is brewing.
“We’re not seeing masses pouring into the street. We’re seeing, in certain places, young people using grassroots terrorism and lone attackers,” Israel’s defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, told reporters. “What do we call it? Let’s wait and see how it develops. It’s clear there is an escalation.”
With the rise in violence, Israelis wondered if they would again have to worry about security in their daily lives.
The last Palestinian uprising brought a surge in suicide bombings in Israel and crushing military operations in Palestinian cities.
Last week, a Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians in central Jerusalem, the second such incident at a light railway station in as many weeks.
