Four Israeli cities, citing security, ban Arab workers from schools

One headline caught my eye: “Israelis gun down alleged assailants in new attacks”.

The decision to ban cleaning and maintenance workers from schools when students are present comes after more than two weeks of Palestinian unrest and knife attacks targeting Jews.

The shooting of the innocent man will be investigated, Halevy said. Now visiting Israel, he said he is there in solidarity with Israelis, and he visited injured victims of “terror” in the hospital.

An Israeli security forces jeep ignites after Palestinian protesters threw a Molotov cocktail at it during clashes near the Beit El settlement on the outskirts of Ramallah in the West Bank, on October 17.

The violence continued on Saturday, when Israel reported a stabbing attack and two other attempted attacks by Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Palestinian leaders say a few of those shot by Israeli security forces were unarmed or didnt pose a lethal threat, making their killings war crimes.

Most of the attacks on Israelis have been carried out by Palestinians with no known ties to militant groups, in many cases seemingly inspired by messages on social media.

Is this a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising? The officer’s hand was lightly wounded.

“People are struggling because of the violence, ‘ said Bill de Blasio on a three-day trip to Israel, desribing the attacks on civilians as ‘unconscionable and unacceptable according to all our values and it is something that must end”.

A series of attacks, mostly stabbings, have unnerved Israel, which has responded by beefing up security nationwide and imposing checkpoints in Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

“In light of the sensitive situation, the municipality has decided not to allow contractors/workers, both Jewish and Arab, to enter educational institutions for the objective of routine work at the school”, the Tel Aviv municipality said in a statement.

The last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, pushed by US Secretary of State John Kerry, collapsed in April 2014.

“Israel is not the problem at the Temple Mount, Israel is the solution”, he said at the start of his weekly Cabinet meeting.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed the area in a move that is not recognized internationally.

More than 40 Palestinians has died.

Palestinians are also angry at increasing violence by illegal Israeli settlers, who frequently storm al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina.

“We are very concerned about the outbreak of violence”, US President Barack Obama said in Washington Friday, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas “to try to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding”.

One of the incidents occurred near Hebron where an armed Israeli civilian shot and killed a Palestinian terrorist coming at him with a knife.