Three Palestinians carrying out knife attacks on Israelis were killed in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, Israeli police and the military said, as an eight-week-old wave of violence showed no signs of dying down. A soldier on the scene then fired at her and killed her.
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“A Palestinian man at Kfar Adumim junction in a Palestinian taxi tried to run over civilians”, a statement said. According to the Israeli police, the Palestinian man ran into another vehicle on a main road and allegedly got out “with a knife in his hand”.
It was the third Palestinian assailant killed by security forces amid attacks in the West Bank during the day.
On Saturday evening, a Palestinian man from a village near Hebron in the West Bank allegedly stabbed four people in front of a sports stadium in the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, including a 13-year-old girl. He escaped, prompting a five-hour hunt, during which residents were told to stay indoors.
No Israelis were reported seriously wounded in the two attacks. He was protected by a civilian bystander.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian media report alleged that a contingent of IDF forces was headed to demolish the home, in the West Bank village of Beit Fajar, belonging to the family of the terrorist identified in the attack.
Israeli military officers said the radio was shut down because it broadcast calls to attack Israelis. The fresh wave of unrest was triggered by Israel’s imposition in August of restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds.
Meanwhile, Israeli police said a Jerusalem court sentenced a police officer to six weeks of community service for beating a Palestinian-American teenager during a violent protest in July 2014. The site, referred to as the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims and the Temple Mount by Jews, has been a constant flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Frustration by a new Palestinian generation at the failure to achieve statehood through negotiations – and anger at ongoing Israeli settlement expansion – are seen as an underlying cause of the violence.
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Israel have blamed the violence on the actions of Palestinian political and religious leaders.
