Almost 40 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded this month, as violence grips Israel and Palestine, while seven Israelis have died in a wave of knife and gun attacks. Around 2,100 Palestinians, a lot of them civilians, and 73 Israelis, nearly all soldiers, were killed.
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Two separate attempted stabbing attacks in Jerusalem and Hebron were foiled Saturday morning after would-be assailants were shot at the scenes of each incident.
During a follow-up body search, the attacker drew a second knife and tried to stab another officer, after which he was shot dead, the spokesman said.
WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, reported the incident as a shooting death of a Palestinian teenager, it did not mention a knife.
The teen reportedly attempted to stab the officer in Armon Hanatziv settlement, according to Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld. At night, the army said a soldier was stabbed and moderately wounded before the attacker was shot.
A fourth was at a checkpoint in a Jewish settlement neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, and a fifth at another checkpoint.
A day earlier Kerry called Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and “reiterated the importance of avoiding further violence and preventing inflammatory rhetoric, accusations and actions that will increase tensions”, the official said.
The site is also revered by Jews as the location of two destroyed biblical Jewish temples.
Israeli United Nations Ambassador Danny Dannon said Palestinian incitement, not Israel’s decades-long military rule of Palestinians, was responsible for the outbreak of violence.
Five Palestinians were killed Friday in clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Police say the attack occurred at the Qalandia crossing between the city and the West Bank, lightly wounding a member of the paramilitary border police.
AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS An Israeli policeman checks a Palestinian young man at the the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Palestinian students we spoke to at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank say they don’t believe this latest upsurge in violence is part of another Palestinian intifada, or uprising. It has deployed soldiers in Israeli cities and erected concrete barriers outside a few Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, where most of the attackers have come from.
The Hebron area has seen a spate of attacks between local Palestinians and the Israeli settlers living in the area.
Diplomatic moves to halt the more than two weeks of unrelenting violence gained steam, meanwhile, with US Secretary of State John Kerry saying he planned to meet both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the coming days.
Palestinians are also angry at increasing violence by illegal Israeli settlers, who frequently storm al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is ready to meet Abbas to help restore calm.
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But he said that “reckless statements made by Palestinian and Israeli extremist elements reinforced by a few mainstream voices as well” had created a different impression.
