Two-thirds of Palestinians support knife attacks

Abed Almohsin Hassoneh, 21, from the neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, drove his white Mazda into a bus stop on a crowded thoroughfare at the western entrance to the city, according to police spokeswoman Luba Samri.

PPS said Israeli troops have resorted to “direct shooting and killing” instead of detaining Palestinians who are suspected of carrying out attacks on Israeli targets.

Only 45 per cent of Palestinians said they supported the two-state solution, the idea of Israel and an independent Palestinian state living side by side.

The poll also found more confidence in violence than peaceful measures as a means to achieve Palestinian statehood: 66 percent believe an armed intifada would serve Palestinian national interests in ways that negotiations could not, while only 50 percent think wide-scale peaceful confrontations would be more effective than negotiations.

Since mid-September, Palestinians have killed 19 Israelis in near-daily attacks.

Although the violence was initially confined to East Jerusalem, most of the Palestinian deaths since late October have occurred in the occupied West Bank. The rest were killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.

Soldiers shot and killed the driver of a vehicle who tried to run them over during the raid in the Qalandia refugee camp between Ramallah and Jerusalem, the Israeli army said.

Young Jewish men from wildcat settlement outposts in the West Bank and known as the “hilltop youth” have been blamed for violence and vandalism targeting Palestinians, Christian holy sites and even Israeli military property.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled a possible warming of relations with Israel, saying in comments published Monday that the entire region would benefit from the normalization of ties.

Although Palestinians agree with the message issued by Mr Abbas, support for the ageing leader is dwindling.

Continuing, Pouilly noted that in the H2 area of Hebron alone, there have been 16 alleged attacks against Israelis since Oct 1, and of the 17 Palestinians involved in such incidents, 16 have been shot dead, with one injured and arrested.