Palestinian allegations that Israel is trying to alter the religious status quo at a Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where al-Aqsa mosque stands, and to Jews as the Temple Mount, have partly fueled the violence.
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Israeli Police said the alleged attacker was a 38-year-old Palestinian from the Nablus district of the northern occupied West Bank, while local sources identified the man as Baseem Abdul-Rahman Mustafa Salah. He was shot and killed by a civilian, Ynet reported. He identified the attacker as 20-year-old Omar Zaakik.
The Palestinian Prisoner Society said that since the beginning of 2015, at least 700 Palestinian children aged between 11 and 17, have been arrested by the Israeli army, with more than half still languishing in Israeli prisons.
It brought to 99 the number of Palestinians killed in a wave of unrest since 1 October. Israel’s medical service said the victim, in her 30s, was not seriously wounded.
Earlier this week, Israel started barring thousands of Palestinian workers from reaching their workplaces in Gush Etzion, a bloc of Israeli settlements between Jerusalem and Hebron, in light of the security situation. Three-quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs-who were the majority of the population of historic Palestine-fled for their lives after experiencing or learning of massacres by Zionist paramilitary organizations, or were expelled from their homes during the ensuing Arab-Israeli war of 1948. We look at this day as a day for the worldwide community to continue to support the Palestinians towards having their own freedom and to solve this long problem between Palestinians and Israel. Those who are citizens of Israel are treated as second class citizens, while those in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem live under various levels of repressive military occupation and witness, daily, the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. No Israelis were hurt in that attack, Samri added.
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Secretary-general of the Palestinian cabinet, Ali Abu Diak, had said in a statement that the attack was part of Israel’s policy to “oppress the voice of Palestinian rights” and to prevent publication of the truth about “the ongoing ugly crimes Israel is committing against the Palestinian people”.
