(JTA) – The White House applauded Israel’s dismantling of metal detectors near Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque to avoid angering Muslims, but Palestinian officials called for sustained protests.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer lauded on Tuesday Israel’s dismantling that day of the metal detectors, which it set up two weeks ago following the slaying of two police officers by three Arab terrorists.

“The United States applauds the efforts of Israel to maintain security while reducing tensions in the region,” Spicer said.

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The metal detectors were removed amid an escalation of violent protests in the West Bank and of anti-Israel rhetoric across the Muslim world. In Jordan, 30 Israeli embassy staffers were briefly besieged inside the embassy building in Amman following a security officer’s slaying of a man that the Israeli foreign ministry said stabbed the security officer, according to Israel’s Channel 2. A Jordanian bystander was also killed from the shots, according to Israel’s Broadcasting Corporation, or IBC.

Jordan demanded the officer be detained and questioned but Israel invoked his diplomatic immunity. Israel has agreed to pay damages to the family of the slain bystander, according to IBC.

Jordan’s foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, denied the existence of a siege and said that no  terrorist attack had occurred at the embassy. “The statements in Israel pretending that the ambassador and the suspect were besieged, that they were freed and that now they are celebrating their release are ridiculous. What happened was a criminal incident,” he told local media.

The metal detectors were dismantled hours after the initiation of talks on ending the crisis between Israel and Jordan, whose Waqf religious authority is the custodian of Muslim holy sites inside the Temple Mount compound that Israel controls, including al Aqsa and the Temple Mount area, which is called in Arab Haram al Sharif. Jordan was in control of the West Bank and east Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, when Israel conquered these territories from Jordan.

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The White House hailed the decision “despite the demonstrated need to enhance security at the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif in the wake of the murder of two Israeli police officers at the site on July 14,” Spicer said.

But in a statement Tuesday, the central committee of Fatah movement of the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, called on Palestinians to “increase resistance and show up in vast masses for popular resistance” on Friday, the Amad news site reported Wednesday.

Fatah Central Committee Deputy Secretary Sabri Sidem said this following a meeting on Tuesday evening, adding that, “the Central Committee confirms the commitment to the position of religious authorities not to retreat”.

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