On Friday, three Palestinians were killed while allegedly carrying out attacks on Israelis, two in and around occupied Hebron and one in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
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The first happened in Jerusalem, where a Jordanian national screaming “Allahu Akbar” attempted to stab an Israeli police officer near the Damascus Gate of the Old City.
Less than an hour later, a vehicle carrying two Palestinians was rammed into a bus stop near the Kiryat Arba settlement outside Hebron. “Responding to the threat, Israeli soldiers shot towards the assailant resulting in his death”.
Last month the United Nations said it was “gravely concerned” about the killing of a Palestinian refugee on August 16 during an Israeli military incursion into the Fawwar refugee camp near the southern West Bank city. The military said troops fired at him while he was fleeing arrest.
The Palestinian health ministry identified the dead suspect as Fares Khadour.
In a statement, Director of the Hebron district office for Israel’s Coordinator of Israeli Government’s Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Hariz Safadi said Israeli authorities could not rule out the possibility of imposing punitive measures in the villages where the slain Palestinians resided. Israeli forces also justified the killing by stating that the Palestinian civilian attacked them with a knife.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
According to the Palestinian report, the wounded woman is the sister of another young Palestinian who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers at the same junction in June during a similar attempt to ram a auto into pedestrians. Meanwhile, nearly daily stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks by frustrated and unarmed Palestinians have killed 34 Israelis and a U.S. citizen.
Israeli policemen cover the body of a Palestinian assailant who was shot dead at the entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem.
Palestinians are frustrated by Israel’s decades-long occupation and with peace talks going nowhere.
An Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP that the latest attack was “another expression of the incitement (against Israel) on the Palestinian street and on social networks”.
“Let me be absolutely clear: settlements are illegal under worldwide law”. Ministry spokesperson, Sabah Al Rafei, cast doubt on the Israeli police narrative that Amr had tried to stab Israeli troops, saying the police statement had clearly stated that no soldiers or police were hurt in the incident.
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That violence, which ignited in October 2015, saw 212 Palestinians and 33 Israelis killed, according to Reuters.
