Egypt's foreign minister and his American counterpart stressed on Tuesday the importance of resuming the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, in light of the latest escalation in East Jerusalem.
Two Palestinians attacked a Jerusalem Synagogue on Tuesday, killing four people in the holy city's deadliest incident in six years. The perpetrators were immediately shot dead by Israeli police.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri and United States Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the incident during a meeting in the British capital, London.
The ministers studied the latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Badr Abdelatty in a statement. They described the Jerusalem synagogue attack as a "dangerous" escalation, looking into means of preventing the region from "slipping into a vicious circle of violence."
Kerry launched an attempt to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in July 2013, coordinating direct negotiations between both sides. Negotiations collapsed upon reaching a pre-planned deadline in April with little results.
Egypt announced on August 26 reaching a ceasefire agreement within the Palestinian Gaza strip, ending a 50-day war between Israel and Gaza's ruling body Hamas that has left 2139 Palestinians killed and over 11,100 injured. On the Israeli side sixty-four soldiers and six civilians were killed.
Indirect negotiations between Israel and Palestinian factions, sponsored by Cairo, were scheduled to resume within a month after the start of the new Gaza ceasefire, as per the agreement.
The first round of negotiations was held late September. Meeting parties then agreed to reconvene in October to resume the indirect negotiations.
On October 26, Egypt notified Hamas that it postponed the second round of negotiations, two days after a deadly militant attack in the Sinai Peninsula which left at least 30 security personnel killed.
Egypt closed the Rafah border-crossing on October 25 "until further notice" following the attacks.
