Netanyahu bars ministers from visiting Jerusalem holy site

Muslims fear Israel will seek to change the longstanding rules governing the site, which allow Jews to visit but not pray to avoid provoking tensions.

The clashes coincide with celebrations for the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, often a tense period because of increased visits by Jews to the compound, which they call the Temple Mount.

The attacks have shocked Israelis and sparked fears of a new Palestinian Intifada, or uprising.

GAZA Israeli troops fired across the border into Gaza on Friday, killing four Palestinians and wounding at least a dozen others who were throwing stones during a rally in support of protests in Jerusalem, hospital officials in Gaza said.

The girl, from Sur Baher in Jerusalem, was seriously wounded in the incident while the Jewish settler sustained moderate injuries, Israeli media reported. He pushes for a multilateral peace effort. The Israeli and Palestinian governments have also accused one another of escalating tensions through incitement and inflammatory statements. He also calls on Abbas to “stop spreading lies about Israel’s alleged intentions on the Temple Mount”.

Ahmed Bitawi, director of the Palestine medical center in Ramallah, told Xinhua that 20-year-old Wisam Farraj was killed after Israeli police shot him in the chest.

The soldier who was stabbed Wednesday was lightly wounded, Israeli authorities said, and police killed the attacker.

Jerusalem’s mayor, caught on video this week with a gun slung over his shoulder while visiting a Palestinian neighborhood, is making no apologies for the display of force.

Arab Member of Knesset Ahmad Tibi of the United Arab List has demonstrated time and again his solidarity with his Palestinian compatriots, and like them sees dead terrorists as shahids (martyrs).

Both Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have called for calm and Palestinian police are continuing to coordinate with Israeli security forces to try to restore order, but there are few signs of the tension and violence dying down.

He insisted the Palestinians are not interested in a further escalation but that his “hands are with those who are protecting Al-Aqsa mosque”.

The hilltop religious site is a frequent flashpoint and its fate is a core issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Among those receiving compensation for their deeds are Hamas bomb maker Abdullah Barghouti and Ibrahim Hamad, the top Hamas official in the West Bank.

In what appeared to be the first revenge attack amid the wave of violence, an Israeli man stabbed and wounded four Arabs in the southern Israeli city of Dimona, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

“Initial reports indicate a Palestinian assailant stabbed a civilian near Kiryat Arba”.

Israeli security forces braced themselves for more unrest Friday after days of Palestinian attacks that spread this week from beyond the flashpoint of violence at Jerusalem’s holiest site and across the West Bank to Israeli cities.

The stabbing of the Israeli man by the 18-year-old Palestinian woman occurred near the Western Wall, a Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem’s walled Old City abutting the al Aqsa mosque complex.

Israeli soldiers patrol a street during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, Sunday, October 4, 2015.

Palestinian assailants carried out a series of stabbings across Israel on Wednesday, jolting an anxious country unnerved by weeks of unrest as clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian demonstrators raged across the West Bank.