Israeli-Palestinian Violence Continues

It brought the number of Palestinians killed in the latest round of violence to 39, with hundreds more wounded.

Speaking to local radio on Thursday, Ayelet Shaked, the Israeli justice minister and a member of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, said alleged attackers and their “supportive” family members would be stripped of their Jerusalem residency rights and social security.

Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian disguised as a news photographer stabbed and moderately wounded an Israeli soldier, the Israeli military said.

“The accused were neither tried nor found guilty, and there was no legal process”, Awad said.

Israel’s military said about 100 people converged on the tomb of the biblical patriarch Joseph in the Palestinian city of Nablus and set parts of it ablaze before Palestinian security forces arrived and pushed them back. The site is under Palestinian control, but Jews are allowed to visit for prayers under Israeli army escort. These claims could not be verified.

Nine human rights groups in Israel expressed concern Wednesday over what they said has been “a worrying trend to use firearms to kill Palestinians who have attacked Israelis or are suspected of such attacks”.

Another Palestinian died in clashes in Beit Furik near Nablus, while protests also broke out in Bethlehem and Hebron. We have no peace – we are confined to this situation.

In the Palestinian uprisings of 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, thousands were killed and many more wounded in near daily violence.

He said “this stark reality” has been compounded by increasingly dire economic conditions, including bleak employment prospects for Palestinian youths and expanding Israeli settlement activities. The soldier was moderately injured.

However, the violence did not reach East Jerusalem, which remained relatively calm, despite tensions in the city being at fever pitch in recent weeks.

In response to the stabbings, Israel has taken unprecedented measures, including setting up checkpoints in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem despite its long-standing assertion that the city is united.

Numerous Palestinian assailants are from east Jerusalem, the sector of the city captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians as a future capital.

Photojournalist and MEE contributor Faiz Abu Rmeleh, who is based in East Jerusalem, said that: “Citizens are complaining about the collective punishment policy [of the closures and restrictions]”.

Young men were being widely stopped and frisked in the city, with police requiring many to partially undress, Abu Rmeleh said.

A Palestinian student has criticised the restrictions Israel has placed on Palestinians, saying they are “very oppressive”.

Last month, she prompted handwringing in Washington when she attended a Chinese military parade marking the end of World War II that was snubbed by leaders of most major democracies.

The area, also home to the Dome of the Rock, is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Mansour called on the council to implement a 1994 resolution adopted after a Jewish settler killed 29 Muslim worshippers at a holy site in Hebron.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack on the tomb as “illegal”, adding that it “offends our culture and our religion and our values”.

Can Israel and the Palestinians contain spiralling violence?

Mr Abbas has called for peaceful protest, but had not explicitly condemned any attacks in the recent wave of unrest until Friday’s statement on the holy site.

In a bid to dispel fears, the council statement would also call for maintaining the status quo at the Al-Aqsa compound.

“As you are all well aware, I do not support the idea of endless war”, Obama said Thursday as he announced he was dropping plans to withdraw almost all USA forces from Afghanistan by the end of next year.