Israel police shoot alleged Palestinian attacker

Seven Israelis and around 30 Palestinians have been killed in an upsurge of unrest since October 1, with numerous attackers wielding blades.

The hillside Jabel Mukaber area of east Jerusalem has a reputation among Israelis for being volatile. The assailant was killed.

In a neighbourhood around East Jerusalem, Israeli border police had stopped to question a 16-year-old Palestinian walking in “a suspicious manner”, a police spokesman said. A “Palestinian man’s” daughter said…Sheesh.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack and called for an investigation.

Earlier on Saturday a Palestinian man was shot and wounded by an Israeli civilian near an illegal Jewish settlement in Hebron in the occupied West Bank. After police officers identified the suspect and approached him for questioning, he pulled out a knife and attempted to stab them.

Two of the attacks today happened in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron where a few 500 Jewish settlers live in a heavily guarded enclave in the city centre surrounded by almost 200,000 Palestinians.

In the latest attack, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli border policeman at the Qalandia crossing in the West Bank, a police spokesman said. There were no immediate details on his condition.

The torching of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus came as Palestinians called for a “Friday of revolution” against Israel, while Israeli fire killed two Palestinians and wounded 98 in clashes along the border with the Gaza Strip.

Israel claims that these are the same attackers throughout the CCTV footage.

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. Nearly all the assailants were teenagers armed with knives rather than bombs or suicide belts. More clashes erupted on Saturday with several incidents.

Particularly counterproductive have been the fatal shootings of a dozen of the attackers by Israeli police or bystanders. “This will just cause new attacks”.

Israeli authorities reported three Palestinians pulling knives then being shot dead, as the spate of violence afflicting Israelis and Palestinians continued Saturday.

Those have since been buried by the second intifada, in which organized deadly attacks targeted Israelis from 2000 to 2005, and three wars in Gaza that killed thousands of Palestinians.

Israel says it is keeping the status quo at the holy compound. The Palestinian fears have been fueled by a growing number of Jews visiting the compound in recent months, especially during holidays, with the encouragement of Jewish activist groups and senior government officials.

Israeli police say an attack at a bus station in southern Israel was carried out by one attacker, not two.

Since the start of October, more than 40 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian officials. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem strongly condemns this attack. I can’t see any end of this situation. “You can’t get your auto in and out of the village, the shops are running out of perishable items, like milk or yogurt, and they won’t give us times when the road will be open or closed”, said Majdi Fahmi, a 52-year-old construction worker.