Israeli prime minister cancels trip to Germany as wave of violence

Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled this week’s bilateral talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying that he can’t leave Israel due to the security situation.

A new generation of angry, disillusioned Palestinians is driving the current wave of clashes with Israeli forces: They are too young to remember the hardships of life during Israel’s clampdown on the last major uprising, and after years of nationalist Israeli governments many have lost faith in statehood through negotiations and believe Israel only understands force. Police said he deliberately ran over the man, and footage showed him using the mechanical arm to tear into and overturn an Israeli commuter bus. The settler who was attacked in her auto said that a group of Palestinian youths tried to pull her from the vehicle at the time the shooting took place. Palestinian resentment has also been stoked by increasing vigilantism by Israeli settlers, which two months ago resulted in the deaths of three members of a Palestinian family, including a toddler, in an arson attack. An Israeli official confirmed the cancellation. The main concern, though, remains “popular” acts of violence, triggered in recent weeks by Palestinian protests against Israeli security sweeps at the al-Aqsa mosque compound atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Clashes were also reported in near Ramallah and in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina.

The meeting came amid reports that the United States gave Netanyahu an ultimatum, demanding he stop announcing new settlement construction, and warning that the USA would not veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning the illegal settlements if they continued expansion.

One of the Palestinians was hit in the back of the head.

Speaking to foreign journalists on Wednesday, Reuven Rivlin sought to soothe tensions after a week of bloody attacks that have killed several Israelis and Palestinians.

Earlier in the day, a Palestinian woman was shot and seriously injured after stabbing a man in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Netanyahu has been under pressure from rightwing allies in his razor-thin coalition to respond forcefully to Palestinian unrest, but that could risk provoking the violent escalation of an already volatile situation.