He added that Jewish settlement building in the West Bank would be stepped up ahead of the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
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According to a statement by the Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Simari, the closure began at midnight and will be lifted on Saturday evening following a status evaluation.
Many Palestinian bystanders shared images on social media of the killed pair’s bodies laying on the ground in the vehicle lane of the checkpoint, and later being loaded into an Israeli ambulance under a white drape.
Israel says incitement by Palestinian leaders is a key factor behind a wave of Palestinian attacks in recent months.
“The female terrorist stopped a short distance from the officers, then walked the other way with the man, when she suddenly turned around to face the officers again, pulled a knife that was in her purse and threw it at an officer near her”, she said.
A Palestinian security official identified those killed as a 24-year-old mother of two and her 16-year-old brother, residents of the al-Ram neighborhood near the Qalandia checkpoint, the West Bank’s busiest.
“Police ordered them to stop a number of times without success”.
A spokesperson for Palestinian Red Crescent Society told Mondoweiss two ambulances were dispatched to transport the Palestinians, one on the Jerusalem side of the checkpoint and one on the West Bank side.
Since October 1, increased tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel have boiled over into violence.
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Israeli police on Tuesday ejected nine Jews from the flashpoint Al-Aqsa compound in east Jerusalem for flouting the site’s rules and briefly detained two Palestinians who attacked Jewish visitors.
