The Palestinian "Day of Rage" in Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip could have been worse, and Israeli and Palestinian leaders are trying to defuse the violence, US President Bill Clinton said Friday, according to AFP.
"I was very afraid that this could have been the worst day of all, because of the other circumstances," he noted.
"So even though it was a very tough day, we do believe that both sides tried to take some steps to defuse the violence."
Eleven Palestinians died from Israeli bullets in the Palestinian territories on Friday, including a young boy shot dead outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, according to the agency.
"I had actually feared it could be worse because it's a very sensitive day, because some had called for it to be a day of rage, because it was the holy day of the week for the Muslims, I'm not sure that they could stop everything that happened today," Clinton told a news conference.
"We need to give this another day or two to see if we can calm it down," the US leader said. "By far the most important thing is to put an end to the violence and to see this as a sober reminder of the imperative of getting on with this peace process," he said.
US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, returned to Washington late Thursday after marathon talks between Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, and Israeli Premier, Ehud Barak, in Paris on Wednesday and then meetings in Egypt between Arafat and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Clinton intends to talk to Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort to break the impasse over a UN resolution on a week of violence that killed at least 70 people, diplomats said.
"President Clinton has been fully engaged in this process during the evening," one diplomat said.
"He has been committed to peace in the region his entire tenure in office. He will continue to do so until the end of his term and he instructed us to ask for a delay so we can try to get it right. The stakes are very high," added the diplomat -- (Several Sources)
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