By Monday evening, two Palestinians had been killed in clashes, including a 13-year-old boy.
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Tensions are running high among both Palestinians and Israelis.
The homes of two Palestinians who were behind lethal attacks that occurred a year ago have been destroyed by Israeli security forces, according to the Guardian newspaper, as tensions between Israelis and Palestinians mount once more.
Ashraf al-Ajrami, a former Palestinian minister for prisoners, confirmed the report, saying the prisoners are “heroes” and that the money is for the wellbeing of their families.
Israeli police have temporarily barred Palestinians from the Old City. The man drew his gun and fired, wounding her seriously, Samri said.
Besides the two Israeli men killed in the attack, the wife and 2-year-old son of one of the men were wounded.
“We’ve added four battalions to the IDF deployment in Judea and Samaria and thousands of police in Jerusalem”, Netanyahu said, as he prepared to meet with his ministers and security chiefs for the second time in two days. Only Israelis, tourists, residents, business owners and students were allowed in.
Yasser Abdu, 40, a neighbor and friend of the Abu Jamals, accused Israel of a “policy of collective punishment”.
The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service reported that 39 people were wounded on Tuesday, including a 17-year-old boy in a serious condition after taking an Israeli military gunshot to the abdomen. Several other locals suffered from tear gas suffocation and were treated at the scene.
Israel has imposed sweeping restrictions on entries into al-Aqsa Mosque compound since August 26.
There have been increasing clashes between Israelis and Palestinians over Israeli settlers’ storming of the al-Aqsa Mosque. Many Palestinians believe that Israel is trying to expand a Jewish presence at the site, a claim Netanyahu has denied. Netanyahu denies the claims, describing them as slander aimed at inciting Arabs to violence.
Abbas’s remarks came as spreading unrest provoked fears of a new uprising and as Israeli and Palestinian officers met to discuss ways of defusing the situation.
Netanyahu is under heavy pressure, particularly from hard-liners in his governing coalition, to respond with a tough crackdown. But on Tuesday he called for calm and said his people had no interest in further “escalation”.
“We tell them [the Israelis] that we do not want either military or security escalation,” Abbas said at a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as cited by Reuters.
Israeli soldiers patrol a street during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, Sunday, October 4, 2015.
Over the weekend, one of Israel’s leading newspaper commentators, Nahum Barnea, flatly called the recent violence the “Third Intifada”, referring to uprisings in the 1980s and the early 2000s.
Israel announced harsher measures to tackle Palestinian violence today as a Palestinian teenager was killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, a Palestinian hospital source said.
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Also on Tuesday, troops sealed off a room at the home of another Palestinian, ahead of its potential demolition.
