John Kerry reports progress on Middle East talks after fifth visit since March

John Kerry speaks at a press conference at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. Photograph: Getty Images

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, left Israel on Sunday at the end of his fifth visit since March without securing the prize of a face-to-face meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, which would have been the first in almost three years.

After three days of intensive shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem, Ramallah and the Jordanian capital, Amman, Kerry said some progress had been made but there was more work to be done.

He had reportedly hoped to convene a four-way summit – talks about talks – between Israel, Palestine, Jordan and the US for later this week, but made no mention of it at a press conference shortly before taking off for Brunei.

"I'm pleased to tell you that we have made real progress on this trip," he said. "And I believe that with a little more work, the start of final-status negotiations could be within reach."

He added: "We started out with very wide gaps, and we have narrowed those considerably.

"We have some specific details and work to pursue but I am absolutely confident that we are on the right track and all of the parties are working in very good faith in order to get to the right place."

Both sides had requested that he make a return trip to the region soon, he said. "I believe their request … is a sign that they share cautious optimism."

Most observers are sceptical about the chances of serious talks resuming, and many politicians are also dismissive. However, both the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have publicly declared that they are ready to sit down with one another.

The Palestinians want Israel to halt settlement construction as a sign of good faith that it is willing to negotiate a border based on the pre-1967 Green Line. They argue that as long as Israel continues to expand its presence in territory that is expected to constitute a future Palestinian state, border negotiations would be meaningless.

They also want the release of about 100 Palestinian prisoners who have been in jail since before the Oslo accords were signed almost 20 years ago.

Israel says it is willing to negotiate without preconditions, but has so far refused to meet Palestinian demands.

Previously Netanyahu has said that the Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state. On Sunday he said Israel would stand firm on security issues and put any future agreement to the Israeli public in a referendum.

Both sides are considered to be positioning themselves in order to blame the other in the event of the failure of Kerry's mission.

The US secretary of state has now set a new time frame to achieve tangible progress. He wants to see significant movement by the time the United Nations general assembly meets in New York in September. On each of Kerry's visits the time frame has been extended as a breakthrough eludes him.

Kerry extended his scheduled visit this time, cancelling a trip to Abu Dhabi in order to hold further meetings. One session with Netanyahu ended close to 4am on Sunday, after which Kerry walked through the deserted Jerusalem streets before driving to Ramallah to see Abbas, according to Reuters, who quoted an unnamed US state department official.

Kerry has left a team of aides in the region to continue to press both sides. There have been no substantial peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians since 2008, and no face-to-face meetings between the two leaders since 2010.

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Egypt's Mohamed Morsi faces mass protests: live updates

It's still a festive mood outside the presidential palace in Heliopolis, north-east Cairo. Around 4,000 anti-Morsi protesters are waving flags and bobbing lightly to the sound of patriotic tunes played from a first-floor balcony. Nearby, a teenager does a wheelie on his motorbike. A few hundred metres away, a crowd pelts a vast, helpfully-placed picture of Morsi with stones.

Elsewhere, there are big flags saying "Irhal!", or "Leave!", while someone has stretched a super-long, anti-Muslim Brotherhood banner along the makeshift walls erected to protect the palace in recent days.

"Morsi got elected in a democratic way," says one Morsi critic, businessman Hassan Shanab, sitting in a wheelchair. "But since he took over, everything's been polarised. All of a sudden we see ourselves part of an Islamic regime like Iran."

Most of the anti-Morsi crowds are still at Tahrir square, which I'm told is close to capacity, despite the heat. But later the focus will shift here, as protesters march from Tahrir – and there are fears of fighting. If attempts are made to break inside the palace, it's possible that the Islamists nearby in Nasr City will come to protect it.

Tahrir Doctors, who tend to the injured at most Cairo protests, have set up three field hospitals, staffed by 30-odd medics. "If we get any injured from any side, we will treat them equally," says Dr Amr Shebaita, the group's head.

It's worth noting that Morsi's opponents are split between those who want to see the army take over, and those who remember the army's repressive interim government, following the fall of Mubarak, with bitterness. Those in the former camp have been perched outside the Defence Ministry in recent days, demanding army intervention.

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Egypt: a time for street wisdom | Editorial

There is nothing in the revolutionary rule book to say that, two years after toppling a dictator, a country is entitled to enjoy peace. If post-soviet Russia or post-apartheid South Africa have taught the world anything, it is that democratic transitions are frail and fragile creatures, which can be prey for stronger predators. President Mohamed Morsi was not exaggerating when he told the Guardian this weekend that his first year as president of Egypt had been "very difficult" and that he fully expected his troubles to continue.

Some of these troubles have been of his own side's making. The Muslim Brotherhood made two strategic mistakes that contributed to the shutdown of dialogue between the two camps that once shared Tahrir Square. The first was to push for a constitution that allows for greater religious input into Egyptian legislation. This was done to keep a doctrinally strict Salafist party on board, which a few months later switched sides anyway. The second was for Mr Morsi to issue the November 2012 constitutional declaration that gave him sweeping temporary powers, which he swiftly abandoned and has regretted ever since. There is truth in the charge that Mr Morsi confused an electoral mandate with an obligation to keep all sides on board.

But nor can the opposition be given a free pass. It complains that the Muslim Brotherhood has grabbed all the power in all the major institutions of state; yet the record shows that its leaders were offered top jobs in government and repeatedly turned them down. It lays claim to a democratic mandate; yet it refuses to participate in elections it thinks it is going to lose. It claims to be non-violent; yet rival demonstrations have been fired on, causing deaths and injuries.

The truth, a year after Mr Morsi took office, is that neither side accepts the other's legitimacy. Certainly, there are serious concerns about Egypt's election law and the danger of gerrymandering. The question is whether these concerns are so grave as to undermine the validity of free elections. Until now, elections in post-Mubarak Egypt have been judged, on the whole, to be fair. Nor is it right to claim that the Brotherhood's organisational capacity on the ground is so great that nothing can be done. The answer to that is for the opposition to build its own political movements from the bottom up.

As a result, what matters right now is how events play out immediately on the streets. Both sides' principal concern is to muster large numbers of supporters and keep them on the streets of Egypt's major cities. But the tragedy for both sides is that there is a third camp, sitting in the wings, for whom civil disorder is a win-win situation. This is composed of the remnants of the old regime, who have never really gone away and are actively seizing their chance for a comeback.

An obvious danger in Egypt is that the toppling of a democratically elected president amid widespread civil unrest may force the army to intervene. Some optimists claim that army rule would only last for a brief period to allow fresh elections to be held. But a more probable scenario is that if the army came to power it would stay for a long time. For many Islamists, having taken the democratic route but been denied the chance to see their leaders govern, opposition would not be a question of ideology but a matter of personal survival. What would prevent them from concluding that a future of arrest, torture and imprisonment awaits, a return to what they experienced under Mubarak? What would stop the ranks of extremists on both sides swelling?

The coming days are pivotal. Mr Morsi may survive. Or Egypt could be Algeria writ large. A prolonged civil conflict would not discriminate between one sect or another, or between Egyptians. Nor would it necessarily respect borders. The stability of a Middle East in which the US and Europe have less power to influence events, depends to a great extent on a stable Egypt. Both the region and the world are watching to see which way Egypt chooses.

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Protesters across Egypt call for Mohamed Morsi to go

Egyptians protest against President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo. Photograph: EPA

Millions of Egyptians filled streets across Egypt on Sunday calling for the departure of Mohamed Morsi on Sunday, hours after the president told the Guardian he would not resign.

A year to the day after Morsi's inauguration as Egypt's first democratically elected president, up to 500,000 protesters swelled Cairo's Tahrir Square calling for Morsi's removal. They then headed to Itahadiya, the presidential palace in the north-east of the city in the evening.

Security sources said that at least seven people were killed and more than 600 wounded in clashes between Morsi's supporters and opponents.

Five of the dead were shot in towns south of Cairo, one each in Beni Suef and Fayoum and three in Assiut.

Two more were killed by gunfire during an attack on the national headquarters of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood in a suburb of the capital, medical sources said.

Hundreds of people throwing petrol bombs and rocks attacked the building, which caught fire as guards and Brotherhood members inside the building exchanged gunfire with attackers.

State news agency MENA reported that 11 were treated in hospital for birdshot wounds, and across the country, the health ministry said, 613 people were injured as a result of factional fighting in the streets.

In Alexandria, Egypt's second city, 100,000 rallied in the centre, with similar rallies reported in dozens of other Egyptian cities. The headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi's Islamist group, came under attack as night fell.

A spokesman for Morsi said that the president knew he had made mistakes and was working to fix them. Omar Amer added that Morsi was serious in his repeated calls for national dialogue.

"(Morsi) announced to all of Egypt's people that he made mistakes and that he is in the process of fixing these mistakes," Amer told a late-night news conference.

He said Morsi had "extended his hand" for dialogue and wanted to listen to everyone, repeating the president's previous calls for national dialogue, which the opposition has rebuffed as not serious.

"I want to confirm one truth, if there is a total lack of response to this initiative, no listening to it, no interest in it from any side, what do you think the presidency can do?" the president's spokesman said. "The presidency is now waiting for a reaction, no matter how small, so it can build on it." The scale of the protests – which took place on the first day of the Egyptian working week – surpassed predictions made by presidential aides, who had expected only 150,000 people to take part nationwide.

A military source told Reuters that as many as 14 million people in the country of 84 million took part in the demonstrations. There was no independent way of verifying that estimate, though the armed forces used helicopters to monitor the crowds.

"The scenes of protests are unprecedented in size and scope, and seemingly surpass those during the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak," said Michael Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation and a longtime Egypt analyst.

The scale of protests were even more remarkable, Hanna said, because they were "a bottom-up, grassroots effort and not directed by political opposition leaders. In a sense, they have latched on to this expanding current. While the organisers were diligent and creative, while lacking organisation and funding, this breadth of mass mobilisation could not have transpired unless the protest movement was tapping into deep and growing frustration and disenchantment with the current course of the country and its leadership."

Some senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood spent the day travelling, fearing for their safety. Morsi himself moved from Itahadiya to the Quba palace, a state building in a safer part of Cairo.

"Egyptians are doing it again," said Ahmed Said, a leader of the largest opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front (NSF).

"They insist on regaining their hijacked revolution. We have revolted to reclaim our dignity, and reclaim our dignity we will."

But Morsi was defiant in the face of such dissent. "If we changed someone in office who [was elected] according to constitutional legitimacy – well, there will be people opposing the new president too, and a week or a month later they will ask him to step down," Morsi told the Guardian in an exclusive interview.While Morsi was elected in free elections, his opponents believe he has failed to uphold the democratic values on which a well-rounded democracy depends. In particular, he has been criticised for using a presidential decree to force through an Islamist-slanted constitution, viewed by many as the act of a dictator.

Among many other complaints, Morsi has been accused of presiding over the oppression of activists and journalists, and a marked drop in living standards.

Once a consensus candidate for Islamist and secular voters, critics say he has alienated secular politicians and failed to achieve the unity he was elected to build. Morsi blames the opposition for failing to meet him halfway.

"Morsi got elected in a democratic way," said one government critic, businessman Hassan Shanab. "But since he took over, everything's been polarised. All of a sudden, we see ourselves part of an Islamic regime like Iran. Morsi's answerable to the Brotherhood, but they are not answerable to us." As Shanab spoke, a crowd of protesters nearby started pelting a giant poster of Morsi with stones.

The president still has a vocal support base, 20,000 of whom have been camped in east Cairo since Friday in a show of support for his regime and for its democratic legitimacy. Many of them saw the protests elsewhere as counter-revolutionary and some claimed they had been started by forces loyal to former dictator Hosni Mubarak. "I'm here to defend my vote, and to defend a revolution I was part of," said Shaima Abdel-Hamid, a teacher and Morsi supporter.

"We chose a president and now they want to get rid of him when he's dealing with 30 years of corruption. And they want to get rid of him after only a year."

"Seculars will not rule Egypt again," chanted one crowd of Morsi backers, who come not just from the Muslim Brotherhood, but from other Islamist groups such as Gamaa Islamiya, a Salafi movement.

A senior Brotherhood politician, Essam El-Erian, denounced the protests as a "coup attempt". In a statement on the group's website, he challenged the opposition to test public opinion in parliamentary elections instead of "simply massing people in violent demonstrations, thuggery or shedding the precious blood of Egyptians".

Yet many in Tahrir Square emphasised their religiosity, while rejecting what they perceived as the Brotherhood's attempts to run the Egyptian state along religious lines and to arbitrate on the correct interpretation of Islam. "I voted for him," said Haga Zeinab, a niqab-wearing protester in Tahrir. "But it turns out he only thinks his own people can be Muslims."

Anti-regime protesters created a carnival atmosphere in the square, with many setting off fireworks. At Itahadiya, they bobbed to patriotic songs played from a soundsystem resting on a first-floor balcony.

But at the Islamist rally, the mood was tetchy, particularly after several Brotherhood offices were attacked this week, and one former Brotherhood MP was killed. Many donned cycle helmets and builders' hard hats, and held shields and sticks in case of attack, waiting in defensive mode behind six lines of security checks. Some carried homemade shields emblazoned with the slogan: "Legitimacy is a red line" – a reference to Morsi's democratic mandate.

But with senior Muslim clerics warning of the prospect of civil war this week, many of the Islamists promised to act if the presidential palace came under attack from anti-Morsi protesters, and the police or the army fail to defend it.

The police have historically been no friend of the Brotherhood; across Egypt there were isolated accounts of policemen expressing support for anti-Morsi protesters.

"Now we're seeing the revolution being threatened," said Mohamed Sherif Abdeen, an IT teacher and member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was carrying a stick and wearing a hard hat – for self-defence, he said. "We won't do anything if the army and police do their job. But, if not, and they don't protect the presidential palace, we will protect it with our chests."

At Itahadiya, medics were taking precautions, anticipating night-time attacks from Islamist forces or state officials. Tahrir Doctors, who tend to the injured at most Cairo protests, set up three field hospitals, staffed by about 30 medics. "If we get any injured from any side, we will treat them equally," said Dr Amr Shebaita, the group's head.

Egypt has been rife with speculation about what will happen next. Two of Egypt's best-known opposition leaders – leftist Hamdeen Sabbahy and liberal Mohamed Baradei – were photographed marching arm in arm towards Itahadiya on Sunday. Should Morsi fall, both are considered potential key players in any transition scenario. Among Morsi's opponents, the most popular and startling choice of successor – at least in the interim – may be the head of the armed forces, General Abdel Fattah Sisi.

There is widespread support for an army coup, particularly after Sisi hinted at the possibility of military intervention last week. "Come on Sisi," chanted protesters outside the presidential palace on Sunday. "My president is not Morsi."

Demonstrators camped outside Cairo's defence ministry – in yet another protest – shouted: "The people and the army are one hand."

Others feel uncomfortable with such sentiment. The Tamarrod campaign, a new protest movement that spearheaded Sunday's protests, issued a statement rejecting support for Ahmed Shafiq, the former air force chief defeated at the ballot box by Morsi last year. But such arguments may be unnecessary. Allies of the president believe protests will dissipate if he can hang on until the start of Ramadan in ten10nine days' time.

Additional reporting by Mowaffaq Safadi

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Egypt locked in standoff after millions protest

• Millions protest to demand President Morsi's resignation
• Muslim Brotherhood's offices targeted
• Defiant Morsi dismisses call for his removal

Graffiti depicting Egypt' President Mohamed Morsi on a outer wall of the presidential palace in Cairo. Hundreds of thousands thronged the streets of Cairo and cities around the country Sunday and marched on the presidential palace, filling a broad avenue for blocks, in an attempt to force out the Islamist president. Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AP 8.27am BST

Middle East Live is now primarily a forum for readers to share links and offer commentary on developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Please post your comments below.

Here's a roundup of the latest news:

• Egypt is locked in a tense standoff after millions of protesters took to the streets across the country demanding the resignation of Mohamed Morsi with some militants set the ruling Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters on fire. After dawn on Monday, young men were still preventing traffic entering Tahrir Square but only hundreds of people remained, some resting under makeshift awnings, Reuters reports.

• Up to 500,000 protesters filled Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday. Security sources said that at least seven people were killed and more than 600 wounded in clashes between Morsi's supporters and opponents. Follow how the day unfolded in Sunday's Middle East Live.

• In an interview with the Guardian over the weekend, Morsi dismissed calls for his removal. He said:

If we changed someone in office who [was elected] according to constitutional legitimacy – well, there will people or opponents opposing the new president too, and a week or a month later, they will ask him to step down.

There is no room for any talk against this constitutional legitimacy.

• Trying to topple a democratically elected president amid widespread civil unrest invites the intervention of the army, argues a Guardian editorial.

If the army came to power it would stay for a long time. For many Islamists, having taken the democratic route but been denied the chance to see their leaders govern, opposition would not be a question of ideology but a matter of personal survival. What would prevent them from concluding that a future of arrest, torture and imprisonment awaits, a return to what they experienced under Mubarak? What would stop the ranks of extremists on both sides swelling?

Anti-Morsi protesters attack the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Al-Moqattam, Cairo. Photograph: Amru Salahuddien/Rex Features

• Government forces have pounded Sunni Muslim rebels in the central city of Homs with artillery and from the air on Sunday, the second day of an offensive to expand loyalist control over Syria's strategic centre, activists said. They said rebels defending the old centre of Homs and five adjacent Sunni districts had largely repelled a ground attack on Saturday but reported fresh clashes and deaths within the city on Sunday.

• Saudi Arabia has sentenced seven activists from its restive Eastern province to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years for posting messages on Facebook calling for anti-government protests, according to Human Rights Watch. The New York-based rights group urged the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and other European officials who were meeting with Gulf counterparts in Manama on Sunday to condemn the convictions.

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