Abbas calls for peaceful resistance after spate of fresh stabbing attacks

With violence mounting, Israel also turned its attention to the social media front, asking Facebook and YouTube to remove videos it says have been encouraging Palestinian attacks.

“This is the conduct of an occupying army that should be tainted with all of these shames”, Mansour said.

“Israel continues its campaign of repression and collective punishment agains the Palestinian people under its occupation”, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations said in a searing letter to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon.

Israeli troops also clashed with Palestinians in the West Bank on Wednesday.

Provocative visits by Israel’s Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel as well as by Israeli Arab lawmakers have added to the volatility.

Netanyahu has come under fire from hard-liners within his own governing coalition as well as opposition lawmakers for not putting an end to the surging violence, which erupted weeks ago over tensions surrounding a Jerusalem site revered by Muslims and Jews.

As prime minister, Netanyahu has the authority to order police to halt the visits on security grounds, and his office said the ban was open-ended. The Palestinian assailants were both shot at the scene. He said the attacker was an Arab without providing more details. At least six Palestinians were reported wounded Thursday by rounds from low-velocity sniper rifles which security forces have been authorized to use against riot ringleaders. Further clashes broke out at the Bet El checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday.

In a statement released to Newsweek, the Israeli military said that the officer shot the Palestinian detainee as his life was in danger and said that the suspect had received medical attention after his arrest. He said Jewish parliamentarians “infiltrated and caused provocations, and because of them there is an escalation; not because of Arab parliamentarians and worshippers who are entering the Mosque of Al-Aqsa”.

On Wednesday, a Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli man, who then shot and wounded her in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The death of Samir Alloun, killed by police on Sunday after allegedly stabbing and wounding a 15-year-old in west Jerusalem – an account contested by Palestinians – was seen online 100,000 times. The men were evacuated to a hospital for treatment.

The spike in violence between Palestinians and Israelis shows no signs of abating, with three stabbing attacks reported Thursday.

Four Israelis have been killed in stabbings in Jerusalem and a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank in the past week.

Israeli forces raided the Islamic holy site and cracked down on Palestinian worshipers who were protesting against permitting Jewish groups into the compound during Jewish holidays, conflicting with the status-quo.

Earlier, another Israeli man was seriously wounded by a stabber at a station of the light-rail train system in Jerusalem.

Selfies are being posted of youthful stone throwers against a background of burning tyres or billowing tear gas.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinians will not be “dragged” into more violence with Israel, even as a Palestinian attacker stabbed a Jewish seminary student in Jerusalem. The most recent unrest occurred last month when Palestinians repeatedly barricaded themselves inside a mosque at the site and threw stones, firebombs and fireworks at police.

Rami Younis, a self-described Palestinian citizen of Israel who is a political activist and writer, refuted the idea that the recent clashes are religiously motivated. They identified the attacker as an Arab man without providing details. Significantly, the attack took place just outside Jerusalem’s National Police Headquarters.