Israel’s prime minister has suspended contacts with European Union representatives regarding the political process with the Palestinians to protest the bloc’s decision to label Israeli exports from the West Bank.
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The move to suspend diplomatic relations on issues related to the peace process wouldn’t affect Israel’s relations with individual countries in the European Union, the Israeli foreign ministry added in its statement.
In the first attack on Sunday morning, an Israeli border police officer suffered light to moderate wounds amid a stabbing attack close to the Damascus Gate, the entry to the Old City of Jerusalem, in the east part of town, which Israel occupied during the 1967 Mideast War.
The EU published new guidelines requiring Israeli producers to label farm goods and other products which come from settlements built on land occupied by Israel.
Immediately after the EU demanded the labeling of West Bank goods, the EU ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and informed of the suspension of diplomatic dialogue in several European forums. The assailant escaped from the scene, and captured by the Israeli police less than an hour later at a construction site near the scene of the attack.
The violence erupted in mid-September over tensions at Al-Aqsa Mosque compund.
According to the Israel Police, Palestinian rioters threw firebombs at security forces on patrol in Silwan, who fired at the rioters’ lower extremities after feeling that their lives were in danger.
“We found out about it from the media and we are trying to clarify what it means”, he said.
Dozens of Palestinians were Sunday injured by rubber-coated metal bullets at the northern entrance of al-Bireh while others suffocated by inhaling teargas during clashes with Israeli army forces in Beit Ummar.
Numerous attackers have been young Palestinians, including teenagers, who appear to have acted on their own.
Ms. Mogherini has made peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians a diplomatic priority since assuming her post in November past year.
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At the conference Netanyahu blasted the EU’s labelling decision, calling it “absolutely absurd and morally abhorrent, because on the soil of Europe within living memory, Jewish products were labeled, Jewish stores were labeled”. The Palestinians say it’s rooted in frustrations over Israel’s nearly half a century-long occupation.
