Israeli fire kills 3 Palestinians including 2 teens 2 Israeli police stabbed

Islamist movement Hamas on Sunday warned Israel against “foolishness” after an air strike in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire killed a pregnant woman and her toddler.

Two Palestinian teens were killed and eight people wounded by Israeli fire during clashes Saturday at the Gaza border fence, emergency medical services in the coastal enclave said.

While prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Abbas have sought to avoid an escalation, frustrated Palestinian youths have defied efforts to restore calm.

Israel’s military said it targeted “two Hamas weapon manufacturing facilities” overnight after Gaza militants fired two rockets and following Palestinian attempts to infiltrate southern Israel. Rosenfeld said other police forces opened fire and killed the attacker, but also wounded one of their own.

Earlier on Saturday, a Palestinian stabbed two police officers outside the Old City in east Jerusalem before being shot dead by security forces, police said, in the second such attack in the same area Saturday.

“A third bullet, apparently live, either grazed her hand or exploded nearby, sending shrapnel into her hand”, Human Rights Watch said in a statement. No injuries or damage was reported.

Against a backdrop of Muslim protests over Jewish visits to the al-Aqsa plaza, Islam’s third holiest site and also revered by Jews as the site of biblical temples, Palestinians have been attacking Israelis with knives, rocks and, on at least one occasion, guns.

Days of violent confrontations between Palestinians and Israelis intensified today with a deadly Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for rocket fire, and a vehicle bomb directed against an Israeli policeman outside Jerusalem.

The latter measure highlights a characteristic of the ongoing unrest in Jerusalem: Among 300 Palestinians arrested in the last two weeks for involvement in rioting, about 45% of them have been under the age of 18, adding legal challenges to the situation.

Saturday, two knife-wielding Palestinians were shot dead by police during separate attacks in Jerusalem and two others died during demonstrations near a Gaza border fence.

No one has yet been charged in connection to the deaths of a Palestinian family who were burned alive in their West Bank home.

Twenty Palestinians have been killed since violence flared at the start of the month as well as four Israelis.

The premier “approved the mobilization of 13 Border Police companies, in addition to the three that have already been mobilized”, the Netanyahu office said in a statement on Saturday.

Israel’s prime minister says he is holding consultations to promote sanctions against the Islamic Movement in Israel.

There is concern that the attack could be a new stage in the series of stabbing attacks that have killed four Israelis in the past ten days and wounded about a dozen others.

Israel has said it has no intention to do so.

Lerner stressed that Israeli forces would “continue to act, preempt and defeat those that plot to harm the civilians of Israel”. Tear gas was sacked into crowds, and rocks have been hurled at the border. Still, he voiced support for the protesters who have clashed with Israeli police at the al-Aqsa mosque on the holy site, hurling stones, firebombs and fireworks.

Nine Palestinians have been killed in clashes since Friday.

It could also ignite protests throughout the Arab world, disrupting Israel’s relations with Washington, and its Arab and Muslim neighbours that it has been covertly aiding in the US-backed war to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.