JERUSALEM (AP) - Secretary of State John Kerry says his first trip to Israel in more than a year doesn't include a "highfalutin', grandiose" Israeli-Palestinian peace agenda.
Instead, he wants to help quell the recent violence and ensure that "people aren't living in absolute, daily terror that they might be stabbed or driven into or shot."
Kerry will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, before seeing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.
Tensions have soared since September.
Nineteen Israelis have been killed, mostly in stabbings; Israeli fire has killed 89 Palestinians. Israel says 57 of those were attackers, while the rest died in clashes with security forces.
Kerry's nine-month, Israeli-Palestinian peace process collapsed in April 2014. He last visited Israel and the Palestinian territories during fighting in Gaza three months later.