In recent days, Israeli security forces have swiftly shot dead two Palestinian teenagers who attacked with knives.
Advertisement
The site, where Jews go to pray, was badly damaged.
The UN Security Council will hold a special meeting to discuss the situation.
What is driving the latest violence?
The terrorist approached the soldier at Zayit Junction, near Hebron in the West Bank. Marquardt reported live as Israeli forces fired tear gas and protesters and bystanders ran from the streets looking for safety.
Similar scenes played out in other parts of the occupied territories.
Armed Israeli soldiers and settlers fire at Palestinians all the time from behind their protections and equipment at the Israeli border with Gaza at al Bureij.
The fatality, who was not immediately named in Palestinian media reports about the incident but was identified as a 20-year-old man, was shot in the head in the north of the Gaza Strip, the Maan news agency reported Friday.
In Nablus, a city in the West Bank, Palestinians firebombed Joseph’s Tomb overnight and clashes continued in Bethlehem today.
A pregnant mother and her 3-year-old daughter were also killed on Sunday when Israeli launched retaliatory airstrikes “targeting Hamas”, causing the two victims’ house to collapse.
Israeli security forces have deployed massively in Jerusalem after two weeks of Palestinian attacks in the city and across Israel.
Col. Peter Lerner said: “The burning and desecration of Joseph’s tomb … is a blatant violation and contradiction of the basic value of freedom of worship”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped to meet with Abbas to help restore calm. “We will find and arrest those who set the fire”, the military said in a statement.
Palestinian resentments are as old as the 48-year Israeli occupation, but even with them, there have been times when Israelis and Palestinians have gotten along better.
It brought to 34 the number of Palestinians killed since Oct.1.
“Everybody is anxious that it will be open season on reporters”, said Glenys Sugarman, executive director of the FPA, which represents journalists who work for worldwide news outlets and cover Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire before Israeli forces arrived.
“In Gaza, there are no settlements, just borders and Israeli towers”.
Masked Palestinians and a Palestinian flag were seen at the site. Israel repeatedly dismissed the rumours as incitement. Both Israel and the Palestinian authorities have accused one another of doing nothing to protect each other’s communities.
Advertisement
The bloodshed has left Palestinians outraged and Hamas, the de facto ruler in Gaza, dubbed their retaliatory methods as a “third Intifada“.
