Gaza City: Two Palestinian died after being shot by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip today, the enclave’s health ministry said, the latest such incidents in more than two weeks of clashes and attacks.
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Minutes later in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, a second Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli forces when he tried to stab a soldier at a checkpoint, police said.
And a border guard killed a 24-year-old Palestinian who tried to knife him at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank, police said.
Tensions have been high due to the perception of the Palestinian public that Israel is bent on instituting Jewish prayer at al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, situated on a site revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.
A group of prominent Israeli human rights organisations on Wednesday released a statement arguing that recent calls by Israeli politicians to shoot Palestinian attackers rather than arrest them effectively endorses the killing of Palestinians. Around 2,100 Palestinians, a lot of them civilians, and 73 Israelis, nearly all soldiers, were killed.
Police said the 16-year-old assailant was from Jabal Mukaber, the same neighbourhood that was home to three Palestinians who carried out attacks earlier this week. In that time, 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, including 19 labeled by Israel as attackers, and the rest in clashes with Israeli troops. Palestinians accuse Israel of trying to take over the Al-Aqsa compound.
“I call on the parents to show responsibility for their children and tell us, the police, about any unusual behavior”, Haim Shmueli, a Jerusalem police commander, said at the scene of one of Saturday’s attacks.
Amid tit-for-tat attacks between Israelis and Palestinians, the ongoing streak of violence has left dead at least 41 Palestinians – including suspected attackers, as well as unarmed protesters and bystanders – and seven Israelis.
There has also been violence along the Gaza-Israel border.
Israel says it is keeping the status quo at the site.
This news comes after the IDF said Palestinians set the holy site of Joseph’s Tomb on fire.
The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting at Jordan’s request on Friday to discuss the upsurge of violence.
Both teens were shot dead for carrying out alleged attacks.
Mark Toner, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said in a daily press briefing that Kerry was likely to meet the Israeli prime minister, “probably” in Germany, but details of the trip were still being finalised.
Over the past month, eight Israelis were killed in Palestinian attacks, a lot of them stabbings. “And (Palestinian) president (Mahmud) Abbas and other people in positions of power, to try to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding”, he said.
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Palestinian police dispersed the crowd and firefighters extinguished the blaze before Israeli security forces arrived.
