Three alleged assailants were killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis on Friday, security forces said, shattering weeks of relative calm in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
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The two Palestinians hail from the village of Bani Naim, which has experienced an escalated crackdown by Israeli forces after a series of attacks were committed by Palestinian residents of the area at the end of June and early July.
Two of the later attacks on Israelis happened nearby.
Eyewitnesses said that Sarahin was critically wounded, as he and his father were arrested.
Palestinian leaders say assailants have acted out of desperation over the collapse of peace talks in 2014 and Israeli settlement expansion in occupied territory that Palestinians seek for an independent state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said of Saturday’s attack that during a “routine security check” in the West Bank city of Hebron, an “assailant armed with a knife stabbed an (Israeli) soldier”.
The site has been the scene of multiple attacks on Israelis, and killings of assailants, in previous months.
Since October, 227 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, one Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in ongoing violence, according to an AFP count. About 214 Palestinians were also killed during that same period; Israel says the majority were attackers.
A spokesperson for the IDF sad attacks were “just another example of the danger of Palestinian incitement spread through social media”.
An estimated 800 hardline and fanatic Israeli settlers live under the protection of hundreds of soldiers in Hebron’s city center, which was divided into H1, where 30,000 Palestinians live under Palestinian control, and H2, where the settlers live mainly in the old city under Israeli rule.
Hanan Ashrawi strongly condemned Israel’s extra-judicial killings of three Palestinians and one Jordanian today and yesterday in occupied Jerusalem and Hebron.
Shortly afterward, two Palestinians rammed their vehicle into a bus stop, wounding three Israeli civilians, the military said.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
“Despite warnings by the global community and the region, leaders on both sides have failed to take the hard steps needed for peace”, Ban said Friday.
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Palestinians argue that it is a result of years of frustration under Israeli occupation.
