US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Cairo on Sunday as part of the first leg of a whirlwind tour of the Middle East amid escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence, before visiting Jerusalem and Ramallah on Monday and Tuesday.

Anthony Blinken was received by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and met with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, in the context of which Cairo is a strategic mediator between the Palestinians and the Israelis, AFP and News.ro reported.

This long-planned visit comes after the security situation has suddenly deteriorated just a few days ago.

On Friday and Saturday, seven people were killed outside a synagogue and two were wounded in gun attacks in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian side of the Holy City occupied and annexed by Israel.

Also on Friday, the Israeli army shelled the Gaza Strip after rocket fire from the enclave, which it holds under an old blockade.

Israel carried out one of its deadliest raids in years on Thursday, killing nine Palestinians in Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank.

Israeli security forces killed a Palestinian youth near a settlement in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday, while the Israeli army said he was armed.

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Anthony Blinken is calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to “take urgent steps to de-escalate” following the escalation, US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Friday. after Washington condemned the “horrific” attack in East Jerusalem.

But the US Secretary of State’s room for maneuver seems limited, apart from repeated calls for calm in the context of the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During his tour, Anthony Blinken will emphasize the “importance of preserving the historical status quo” at the Esplanade of Mosques in occupied and annexed East Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest site and Judaism’s holiest site, where the confrontation is taking place. place, regularly, between Israeli and Palestinian forces.

“I think the best I can get is a stabilization of the situation to avoid a repeat of May 2021,” the last war that Israel unleashed with Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip, says former American negotiator Aaron David Miller. an expert of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Anthony Blinken’s visit to Israel embodies Washington’s will to quickly restore relations with Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads the most right-wing government in Israel’s history and whose relationship with the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden has been notoriously strained.

This visit followed a visit by White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who assured the Israeli prime minister of the support of the United States.

“I’ve never seen visits at this high level in any administration,” says Aaron David Miller.

“This is an unprecedented thing,” he says, referring to a possible visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House in February.