On Sunday night, an 18-year-old Palestinian was killed during clashes in Tulkarem in the West Bank.
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Netanyahu has partly blamed Abbas for inciting the escalated hostilities, which have seen four Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists in the past four days.
Tensions have been further inflamed by frequent clashes between Palestinian rock-throwers and Israeli security forces at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Officers shot dead both attackers and Israel’s government an-nounced it was barring Palestinians from entering the ancient district for two days, apart from people who lived there.
During the clashes, the army used live ammunition and teargas canisters against the youths, causing multiple cases of suffocation by teargas inhalation, besides those who were injured with rubber-bullets.
The latest surge of violence comes at a time when most Palestinians no longer believe in the possibility of statehood through negotiations with Israel.
A Palestinian boy, aged 12 or 13, died in the hospital Monday after being shot in the chest by Israeli forces during clashes in northern Bethlehem, medics in the West Bank told local reporters.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned what he described as an “attack by the occupier’s military and police against the al-Aqsa mosque and the aggression against the faithful who were there”. He said he was heading straight from the airport to a meeting with his top security officials.
The bloodshed – which included a drive-by shooting that killed an Israeli couple in the West Bank on Thursday and an arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents in July – has triggered concerns of wider escalation. He then stabbed another Israeli man to death and opened fire at tourists before police shot and killed him.
Police were on high alert Monday afternoon ahead of evening events closing out the Sukkot holiday, Channel 2 reported, with thousands expected to visit the Western Wall and violence still plaguing the city. Benita’s wife, Adele, was seriously wounded.
Yisrael Katz, Israel’s minister of transportation, said the Israeli response to the upsurge in attacks could soon echo Operation Defensive Shield, the intense 2002 military campaign at the height of the second intifada. The other, Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, was a resident of the Old City. In 2002, the refugee camp was the scene of a few of the fiercest fighting of the second Palestinian intifada.
Saeb Erekat, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a close aide to Abbas, said Israel was planning another Defensive Shield because Netanyahu was facing increasing global isolation while the Palestinians were gaining worldwide support.
While blaming Palestinian leaders for incitement to violence at the site, Israeli officials have questioned why the Muslim authorities that administer the holy site allow protesters to stockpile rocks and firebombs and other munitions inside the mosque.
The attacker in the latest fatal stabbing has been identified as 19-year old Mohannad Halabi, a Palestinian law student living near Ramallah, The Guardian reports.
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Israel captured the Old City and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war from Jordan, and later annexed the areas. Most of the world considers the Old City occupied territory; Israel disputes that.
