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JERUSALEM, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Israel rejected Sunday a French initiative to send international observers to East Jerusalem's flashpoint site to calm a month-long spate of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the draft proposal as biased.
"Israel cannot accept the French draft resolution at the UN Security Council ... It doesn't mention Palestinian terrorism, and it calls for the internationalization of the Temple Mount," he said.
France has launched a diplomatic initiative to calm further escalation at the al-Aqsa compound, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews who know it as the Temple Mount.
The draft proposal, reportedly presented by the French ambassador to the United Nations, calls to deploy international observers in Jerusalem's flashpoint holy sites.
Israeli officials said Israel and the United States are working together to thwart a vote on the proposal at the UN Security Council later this week.
Netanyahu charged that Israel is safeguarding the status quo at the holy site. "Israel is not the problem at the Temple Mount -- Israel is the solution," he asserted.
The recent wave of violence was triggered by an increasing visits of Israeli far-right activists to the site, as part of their struggle to cancel a long-held ban on Jewish prayers there.
Palestinians say Israel is violating a status quo agreement from 1967, which allows Jews to visit the site but prohibits them to pray.
Several clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police erupted at the site, with police storming the compound to disperse Palestinian protesters who barricaded themselves inside the mosque in order to harass Jewish visitors.
Statements by far-right Israeli leaders have been stoking Palestinian fears that Israel is plotting to destroy the mosque and rebuild there the Jewish temple.
At least 34 Palestinians and eight Israelis have been killed during the spate of violence.
