He was holding a knife and wearing a fluorescent yellow vest over a T-shirt marked Press. “We also recommend that members exercise caution in unfamiliar areas and travel with a Palestinian fixer or colleague when entering Palestinian areas”, the association said.
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Deadly violence between Israel and the Palestinians flared Friday as a Jewish holy site was torched in the West Bank, prompting a “very concerned” US President Barack Obama to call for calm.
The latest developments in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence (all times local).
“Everybody is anxious that it will be open season on reporters”, said Glenys Sugarman, executive director of the group, which represents journalists who work for worldwide news outlets covering Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said two Palestinians were killed in separate incidents, and dozens of other people injured.
Meanwhile, he detailed the recent attacks among Israelis and Palestinians, including stabbing attacks on Israeli civilians and the killings of Palestinians by security forces.
In the past month, eight Israelis were killed in Palestinian attacks, a lot of them stabbings, according to AP.
Palestinian medics say three Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in clashes between stone-throwers and troops in several West Bank towns.
Israel has taken unprecedented measures this week, including setting up checkpoints in Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. Approximately 40 people, mostly Palestinians, have died in or as a result of the attacks. The violence comes at a time when a possible partition of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean into two states – Palestine alongside Israel – is fading fast.
The Israelis were killed in random attacks in the street or on buses.
Anti-Israeli protests were also held in the northern cities of Zarqa and Irbid, in Mafraq in the east, Jerash in the northwest and in the southern port of Aqaba.
The unrest has been triggered in part by Palestinians’ anger over what they see as increased Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is also revered by Jews as the location of two destroyed biblical Jewish temples. Israel has tightened security and its security forces have clashed with rioting Palestinians, leading to deaths on the Palestinian side. The attack was condemned as “irresponsible” by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The site is shared by both faiths, but the mosque has been reserved for Muslim prayer ever since Israeli independence in 1948.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said that hundreds of Palestinians breached what Israel considers to be a buffer zone in Gaza territory along the border fence and attempted to damage the fence, hurling rocks, rolling burning tyres and posing a “direct threat” to nearby Israeli communities. It was fuelled by rumours among Palestinians that Israel was attempting to alter a long-standing religious arrangement governing the site.
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Israeli security forces are investigating allegations that troops have assaulted journalists.
