An Israeli police spokeswoman said that at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank a Palestinian holding a knife ran toward a security officer who called on him to stop.
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An Israeli soldier continues to attack the medics with pepper spray even as they evacuate one of their injured colleagues on a stretcher.
Sixty-three Palestinians and one Israeli Arab have also been killed.
Knife-wielding Palestinians attacked Israelis in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Friday, October 30 and police said they had shot dead two assailants, in a further wave of violence spurred partly by tensions over a Jerusalem holy site, Reuters reports. Nine Israelis have died in stabbing or shooting incidents in the same period.
Thousands of Palestinian mourners attended the funerals of the five teenagers, two of whom were girls, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, a powder-keg in the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “It isn’t clear yet how many people have been injured by live ammunition or other weapons”.
The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Gadi Eizenkot, said last week that the army has been seeking to restore quiet after weeks of clashes and terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces, though he added no end was in sight.
In recent days, Hebron has become a flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian violence, with near-daily deadly confrontations at Israeli checkpoints that guard enclaves of ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers in the center of the city. One policeman was lightly wounded, the spokesperson said.
Hebron’s Palestinian governor, Kamel Hmeid, said the failure to release bodies to the families was stoking anger in the city, where stone-throwing anti-Israeli protests have been raging.
Kamel Hmeid told Maan News Agency that the Israeli forces stipulated “calm” in Hebron before they were due to return the bodies.
Also on Friday, the Israeli army killed an eight-month old baby, Ramadan Mohammed Faisal Thawabta, who suffocated to death from tear gas inhalation, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Hundreds of Palestinians took part in protests that turned violent across the West Bank and Gaza after Palestinian factions called for a “day of rage” to protest the Israeli violations.
Another Palestinian is to be buried separately in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem while another young Palestinian was buried late Friday in Jenin.
The recent violence in the West Bank, including the killing of a Jewish settler couple in front of their children near the Itmar settlement on Oct 1, has given ammunition to the Israeli pro-settlement lobby, commentators say. Palestinian leaders claim that Israel is trying to change the status quo at the site, though all non-Muslim religious activity remains forbidden and non-Muslim visiting hours remain restricted.
On Friday, dozens of protesters outside the shrine condemned restrictions on access imposed by Israel, which has split it into a mosque and a synagogue.
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The Israeli army said on Thursday it will put in place “several precautionary measures…to contain potential attacks in the future and maintain the safety and well-being of Israelis” in the city.
