Palestinian shot dead by Israeli police officer

The assailant was shot and killed at the scene of the incident on Route 60 near the Palestinian town of Beit Umar, located south of Jerusalem between Bethlehem and Hebron.

A few hours earlier another Palestinian rammed his vehicle into Israeli soldiers at a bus stop near a Jewish settlement, police said.

Featured image: CC BY Samuel M. Livingston via flickr with modifications by HonestReporting.

The Palestinian attacks have been triggered in part by what the Palestinians fear are Israel’s attempts to change a decades-old religious status quo at the al-Aqsa compound, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount.

At least 100 Palestinians have been killed since the start of last month, the majority of whom were killed during attempted, alleged, and actual attacks on Israelis.

Spokeswoman Luba Samri said the 38-year-old Palestinian walked past two officers near a gate into the Old City and then yelled “God in greatest” before stabbing one of them in the neck, moderately wounding him.

Twenty-two Israelis including three United States citizens have been killed in the near-daily attacks committed by Palestinians since the beginning of October.

According to Israeli officials, Netanyahu’s rebellion and his recent violations of Palestinian rights are caused by various reasons.

The violence has also left 17 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean dead. Each Friday, Palestinian movements headed by Hamas call for a “day of rage”, which escalates into clashes between Palestinian youths throwing stones and Molotov cocktails and Israeli security forces who respond by shooting real or rubber-coated bullets and teargas. The global community has regularly urged Israelis and Palestinians to take measures to ease the unrest.

Al-Haq stated that, “Attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank against members of the Palestinian population and their property are an extensive, long-term, and worsening phenomenon”.

Israel’s continued military occupation and confiscation of privately owned land in the West Bank, and control over Gaza, are said to have become extremely oppressive, with Palestinians having minimal control over their lives, thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children are held in Israeli prisons with few given opportunity for trials.