US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Monday urged Israelis and Palestinians to act urgently to restore calm amid a new spiral of deadly violence that international calls for restraint have so far failed to address, AFP reports.

According to Reuters, he reaffirmed his long-delayed vision of peace in the two states side by side as the only way forward.

The top U.S. diplomat’s visit, the second leg of a Middle East tour that began in Egypt on Sunday, had been planned for a long time, but changed due to an outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent days.

The death toll on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides is rising, and attacks, shootings, airstrikes and sanctions continue, raising fears of a new spiral of violence.

“We now call on all parties to take urgent measures to restore calm and de-escalate the situation,” Blinken said in Jerusalem at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Blinken said he wanted to “restore a sense of security for both Israelis and Palestinians, which of course is sorely lacking.”

Later in the evening, he is scheduled to meet with his Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, and then with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. On Tuesday, he will meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

“It is everyone’s responsibility to take steps to ease tensions, not inflame them, to work so that one day people will no longer be afraid in their communities, in their homes and in their places of worship,” Blinken said after arriving in Tel. Aviv airport on Monday.

An outbreak of violence

After the anti-Israeli attacks, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the most right-wing in Israeli history, announced measures to punish the relatives of the attackers.

Israeli forces on Sunday blocked the home of the Palestinian man who killed six Israelis and a Ukrainian woman outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem, on the Palestinian side of the Israeli-occupied Holy City, for demolition on Friday.

The home of the Palestinian who wounded two Israelis, a father and son, also in East Jerusalem on Saturday, was also to be cordoned off.

On Sunday, Israeli guards killed a Palestinian in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Authority, on Monday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in Hebron, in the south of the territory. The military said they shot the fleeing driver.

The anti-Israel attacks followed Israel’s worst West Bank raid in years, which killed 10 Palestinians in Jenin, followed by Israeli rocket fire from Gaza and Israeli retaliatory strikes.