Israel opposition head meets Abbas, warns of 'third intifada'

Israeli opposition chief Isaac Herzog called on Tuesday for a resumption of peace negotiations to prevent a new uprising, after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank.

"We agreed on the fact that on the ground in recent weeks and days there is a deterioration, there is an escalation in terror activities," he told reporters at the Ramallah headquarters of Abbas's Palestinian Authority.

"I told the president that fighting terror and preventing terror activities is of utmost priority to us," said Herzog.

"We first and foremost must prevent a third intifada and we have agreed that in order to prevent a third intifada we must combat terror on one hand, aggressively, and on the other hand we must move towards a diplomatic process, move to negotiate, move to talk with each other."

Tensions have been rising, with three young Palestinians shot dead in the space of eight days during what the Israeli army said were stabbing attempts on its forces in the West Bank.

Adding to the volatility, a Palestinian in Israeli detention, Mohammed Allan, pledged Tuesday to resume his already two-month-long hunger strike, at the risk of death, unless the Jewish state resolves his case within 24 hours.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been frozen since a failed US diplomatic push in April 2014.

A first intifada raged in the occupied Palestinian territories from 1987 until the 1991 Madrid peace conference, while a second anti-Israeli uprising broke out in 2000 and lasted five years.