On Saturday morning, an IDF soldier was lightly wounded in a stabbing attack in the West Bank city of Hebron committed by 25-year-old Hatem Abdel-Hafiz al-Shaloudi, who was shot and killed by security forces.
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Israeli soldiers and medics at the scene where an Israeli soldier was stabbed by a Palestinian man in Hebron, Sept. 16, 2016.
As with most anti-Israeli incidents carried out since October, by individuals without any central guiding hand, the reason for the surge in violence in the last 48 hours is unknown.
Efrat is a short distance from the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, where on Saturday a Palestinian stabbed a soldier before being shot dead. “Responding to the threat, Israeli soldiers shot towards the assailant resulting in his death”. They have killed 34 Israelis and two Americans, with about 214 Palestinians killed during that same period.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since capturing it in the 1967 Six Day War.
“Amro was part of a group of tourists who had entered the Palestinian territories on Thursday to visit Jerusalem”, Sabah Refai said. Of them, 144 were identified by authorities as assailants while others were killed during clashes and protests. The man had both a Jordanian and a Palestinian ID on him, police said.
Israel has blamed social media and Palestinian incitement for the attacks.
Meanwhile, nearly daily stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks by frustrated and unarmed Palestinians have killed 34 Israelis and a U.S. citizen.
The anger of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem has increased in the last three years after the Israeli authorities allowed increasing numbers of Jewish settlers to storm the Al-Aqsa mosque. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed during the same period, a lot of them identified by Israel as attackers.
Palestinian leaders say assailants have acted out of desperation over the collapse of peace talks in 2014.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, condemned Israel for the “extra-judicial killings” of this weekend’s attackers but did not condemn the assaults themselves.
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In some cases, Israel has opened investigations into whether excessive force has been used.
