JERUSALEM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt arrived in Israel on Monday amid escalating violence over East Jerusalem's most contested holy site.
An Israeli government official said he was at a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday evening.
A senior official in the Trump administration said that Greenblatt's visit is "to support efforts to reduce tensions in the region."
His visit marks the first sign of a high-level involvement by the White House to end the strife between Israel and the Muslim world over the violence that broke out in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
The tensions were triggered by metal detectors that Israel has installed at the entrance to Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, a compound run by the Jordanian Muslim Waqf under a long-held status quo. Israel placed the detectors in the wake of a shooting attack that claimed the lives of three Israeli policemen last Friday.
The detectors also triggered protests and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, which claimed the lives of at least four Palestinians.
