Also on Friday, an Israeli man in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Beit El was stabbed and wounded outside a supermarket.
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The military says the driver slowed down, then sped up and drove the vehicle toward the soldiers.
The security guard was lightly injured during the incident, Israeli media reported.
Yet local activists in Tel Rumeida said they heard six gunshots before seeing Israeli soldiers placing a knife near Said’s body.
The shrine is revered by Muslims and Jews as the burial site of biblical patriarchs and matriarchs. “A settler was standing next to the soldiers and he followed the Palestinian back towards where I was standing near the checkpoint”, he said.
On the agenda of the White House talks, Netanyahu said, is “possible progress with the Palestinians, or at least, stabilising the situation when it comes to them”. Sharawi’s son Ayoub, 52, denied his mother, who started driving in her 50s, meant to harm anyone.
“The force identified the threat and responded with fire toward the assailant”, an Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP.
Israeli troops have responded with force, using live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.
“I believe they want to silence them and send a message to other radio stations in Hebron to self-censor”, Sharabati said.
The Israeli army said that Sharawi had attempted to run over the soldiers.
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Such domestic scrutiny is touchy for Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, whose forces have helped Israel curb violence in the West Bank while he publicly condemns Israeli crackdowns and alleged policies at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Israeli army said it opened fire at “instigators” among the Palestinians after they tried to breach the fence and ignored warning shots. “One crude cartoon making the rounds on Facebook, including on the official Palestinian TV page before it disappeared late Tuesday, depicts an Israeli soldier as an ape, accompanied by a pig, over a bloodied youth”, The Times wrote. The knife has replaced suicide bombings, auto assaults & random shootings as the brand new device of selection for waging jihad on Israel, with leaders blatantly calling for Palestinians young & old to take up the kitchen implement & kill. The two incidents mark only the third and fourth shooting attacks to have taken place during an escalation that has been characterized by stabbing and, to a lesser extent, car-ramming attacks.
