West Bank tensions flare after Palestinian detainee's death
Israel has called for a stop to anti-Israeli protests in the West Bank. Palestinians are angered by the death of a detainee who Israeli officials say died of a heart attack in an Israeli prison Saturday. Palestinian officials have called for an investigation into the death.
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Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defence Ministry official, questioned whether the protests were just a tactical move by the Palestinians to draw international attention before Obama's visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.
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But he added, in an Israel Radio interview: "Things can get out of control."
OBAMA AGENDA
Netanyahu has said Iran's nuclear programme would top the agenda of his meetings with Obama, but that the talks also would deal with Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts stalled since 2010.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Abbas aide, said Israel's treatment of prisoners and anti-Palestinian violence by Jewish settlers were "the cause of the deterioration".
Israel said it would carry out an autopsy of the body of Arafat Jaradat, the 30-year-old prisoner who died on Saturday. Israel's Prisons Authority said he had not been on a hunger strike and had been examined by an Israeli doctor during an interrogation on Thursday.
The first Palestinian uprising began in 1987 and ended in 1993, when the Oslo interim peace accords were signed.
The second Intifada broke out in 2000 after the failure of talks on a final peace settlement. Over the following seven years, more than 1,000 Israelis died, half of them in suicide attacks mostly against civilians, and more than 4,500 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.
Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Noah Browning and Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Rosalind Russell
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