Abbas and Obama (file)
Abbas and Obama (file)Reuters

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday sent an urgent message to U.S. President Barack Obama, asking that he intervene to stop the tensions in Jerusalem.

According to Channel 10 News, Abbas called on Obama to act to end what he called the “Israeli escalation” in eastern Jerusalem. Abbas warned in the letter that the steps taken by Israel “will bring about a widespread explosion that cannot be controlled.”

The report noted that Abbas’s letter made no mention of last week’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem. Three-month-old Chaya Zisel Braun was killed in that attack and on Sunday, a 22-year-old woman who was injured in the attack died in hospital.

The car terror attack last Wednesday was the latest in what has come to be known as the “silent intifada”.

Abbas’s letter to Obama comes one day after Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar declared the constant cycle of violence in Jerusalem an official "intifada".

"Escalating the resistance in the city is the solution to Israeli aggression," Al-Zahar told Hamas news agency Al-Risala.

He also slammed the Hamas-Palestinian Authority (PA) unity government’s security coordination with Israel.

"The security coordination is a problem in that is suppresses the intifada against Israeli aggression," stated Al-Zahar. "The people in the West Bank [Judea-Samaria -ed.] are fighting on two fronts: the first is the Israeli occupation and the second is the PA's security forces."