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Two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution slipping away – UN official

Speaking to Al Jazeera, an Israeli army spokesperson said the shootings in Dura took place “during routine [army] activity in the area” and that troops were “still searching for the assailants” connected to Friday’s shooting attack.

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In the wake of the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israel to deduct from tax it collects on behalf of the PA the equivalent amount which the PA pays each month to Palestinian militants jailed in Israel.

Protest rallies were taken out in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in connection with Al-Quds Day to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom against Israeli occupation.

An Israeli army spokesperson told the Ma’an News Agency that movement in and out of the city and its surrounding villages would be closed indefinitely. Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 and Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged in recent months.

An officer examining the scene of an attack on a family auto near Hebron in Israel’s West Bank, July 1, 2016.

He said past closures imposed on Palestinians by the IDF in the occupied territories have been imposed in a manner that amounts to collective punishment.

The man killed was identified as Michi Mark, 48, the head of the yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Otniel, situated eight miles southwest of Hebron.

The brutal killing of the teenage girl in her sleep on Thursday triggered an uproar and was followed a day later by a road ambush by Palestinian gunmen that killed a Jewish rabbi and father of 10 in front of several of his children.

Lerner said that at least 80 attacks on Israeli citizens have originated from, or near Hebron, since last fall.

Police said the woman had tried to stab a policewoman who was searching her at the entrance to a shrine revered by Jews and Muslims.

Palestinians say it stems from frustration at almost five decades of Israeli rule in territory they claim for a state.

“The money goes to the families as social welfare, we can not leave any family without help”, said Issa Qaraqe, the minister for prisoner affairs.

“Israel believes that the encouragement of terrorism by the Palestinian leadership – in the form of both incitement and payments to terrorists and their families – constitutes incentive for murder”, the statement from Netanyahu’s office read.

Israeli airstrikes hit four sites in the Gaza Strip, causing damage but no injuries, officials said, after Palestinian militants fired a rocket that struck a building in southern Israel.

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Also Friday, a report by, the Quartet of Mideast negotiators – the United Nations, U.S., European Union and Russian Federation – said Israel’s settlement expansion is eroding the viability of a Palestinian state and raises “legitimate questions” about its commitment to a two-state solution.

The IRGC's second-in-command Brigadier General Hossein Salami speaks during the pre-sermon address to worshippers at the weekly Friday Prayers in Tehran