When two Palestinian boys aged 13 and 15 attacked a 13-year-old Israeli, police shot and killed the 15-year-old, and the 13-year-old Palestinian was struck by a car-an incident that Palestinian leaders have been trumpeting.
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Israeli authorities have also shut down access to a few Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and put more police on the streets, according to police spokeswoman Luba Samri. “He was then shot and killed”.
Israeli police say an attack at a bus station in southern Israel was carried out by one attacker, not two.
Friday’s stabbing took place on the sidelines of clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian stone-throwers in the West Bank city of Hebron.
“The Palestinian man in Hebron allegedly attempted to attack a settler before being shot and killed by police”.
This and other security steps recently approved by the Israeli cabinet would allow deployment of greater numbers of security personnel and military units in “sensitive areas” across Jerusalem in response to a surge in Palestinian knife attacks the Israeli government described as a “wave of terrorism”.
In Saturday’s incidents, the female soldier suffered minor injuries while the soldier in East Jerusalem and the settler who were attacked were unhurt, police said.
The United States – consistently supportive of the right of Israelis to defend themselves and usually reserved in its criticism – has expressed concern about Israeli security forces using live ammunition in the face of rock-throwing Palestinian youths. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, said the attack violates freedom of worship and that the military will “bring the perpetrators of this despicable act to justice”. Palestinian forces dispersed alleged Palestinian arsonists and put out the fire.
But the official Palestinian version of events doesn’t always match the account given by Israeli authorities. If so, it looks very different from the two that preceded it. Those were planned and funded by the Palestinian leadership and driven by militant groups based in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“Israel should receive severe punishment for the atrocity it committed on the Palestinians in Palestine’s occupied territories including East Jerusalem”, said Mansour. “We will protect the status quo, we are the only ones who are doing this and we will continue to do it responsibly and seriously”.
Tensions have been high due to the perception of the Palestinian public that Israel is bent on instituting Jewish prayer at al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, situated on a site revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.
Yet this closure can not be total, as Jeruselamite Palestinians, thanks to their Israeli ID’s, are entitled to pass the checkpoints in Jerusalem and Israel. “He was holding his bag suspiciously, I thought it was an explosive”, he said.
“We came here to show that Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, can stand together and move toward a different policy, a policy of a just peace, of independence for both of our people”, said Uri Weltmann, a social activist and teacher from Haifa.
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So apart from harassing the Palestinians residents of Jerusalem, it is hard to see how the “closure” on their neighborhoods will help prevent further attacks.
