Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a security policy allowing for “administrative detention”, or jailing without trial, of terrorist suspects.
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Video circulated by Palestinian activists showed a young man wearing a kippa brandishing a pistol as shots rang out before Israeli soldiers moved in to pull him away from a body lying on the ground. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its indivisible capital.
The mosque compound is the third holiest site in Islam and the most sacred for Jews who call it Temple Mount.
The site is located in an area under Palestinian self-rule and visits by Jews are coordinated between Palestinian security forces and Israeli troops.
In New York, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Friday’s “reprehensible” attack, at the opening of a Security Council meeting on the violence.
“It’s important for both [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu… 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”. It has deployed soldiers in Israeli cities and erected concrete barriers outside a few Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, where most of the attacks have originated. Relatives of a Palestinian youth who was killed by Israeli forces a day earlier mourn during his funeral in Gaza on October 17, 2015.
As fears have mounted, Tel Aviv city officials have barred cleaning and maintenance employees from schools during times when students are present, with parents concerned over possible attacks against children.
They were not reported to have been seriously injured.
Over the last month, eight Israelis were killed in attacks by Palestinians and 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, including 19 described by Israel as attackers.
Israel on Sunday closed the only civilian crossing from Gaza into Israel, except for humanitarian cases, while damage was being repaired.
Violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank surged Saturday, as three Palestinian attackers wielding knives were shot dead by Israelis, and two additional Palestinian assailants were shot and wounded.
B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, said in a statement last week “no one disputes the serious nature of the events of recent days, nor the need to protect the public against stabbing and other attacks. Hamas and the Islamic movements are inciting suicide bombings in Jerusalem, and that will only drag the West Bank into an intifada and undermine the Palestinian cause”, the letter said.
Palestinians torched the site holy to Jews on Friday in an incident that threatened to further inflame tensions.
Around 30 Jewish worshipers clashed with local Palestinians after illegally entering Joseph’s Tomb compound in Nablus.
They told police they meant to repaint the shrine after the fire.
Palestinian resentments are hardly new, but Israelis and Palestinians have had better relations at times. When the group arrived, they were confronted by Palestinians and violent clashes erupted. One worshiper was lightly wounded and five were taken for police questioning, the AP said.
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No Israeli was hurt in the incidents. It accuses the Palestinians of inciting to violence through the false claims.
