At least three Palestinians killed after ‘knife attacks’

Israeli authorities said four Palestinians had been shot dead and a fifth seriously injured in thwarted knife attacks on Saturday in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank as tensions ran high after more than two weeks of unrest.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri says a 16-year-old Palestinian drew a knife on officers when they approached him in Jerusalem and asked for identification.

Also in Hebron, a Palestinian teenage girl tried to stab a female Israeli soldier outside a border guard base before being shot dead by her would-be victim, and a Palestinian man was shot after stabbing and moderately wounding a soldier, though it was unclear whether the assailant was killed.

The Palestinian attacker in the east Jerusalem section of Armon Hanatziv was killed in the morning by an armed Israeli civilian he had stabbed, the police said in a text message.

Over the past month, eight Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, a lot of them stabbings, and 40 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.

In the Palestinian uprisings of 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, thousands were killed and many more wounded in near-daily violence.

Checkpoints have been set up in Palestinian areas of east Jerusalem, where numerous attackers have come from, and a few 300 soldiers on Sunday began reinforcing police.

Violent protests have also erupted in annexed East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The shrine is under Palestinian control and off-limits to Israelis except on escorted trips organised by the army.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Friday on the upsurge of violence.

“The state of Israel is fighting with a strong fist against the attackers and those that send them”, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in an e-mailed statement late Saturday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that his government was going to go after the finances of the Islamic Movement in Israel, a group he accuses of being the chief inciter of a recent wave of terrorist violence.

“Israel understands the importance of the status quo and… our objective is to make sure that everyone understands what that means”, Kerry told a news conference in Madrid. Israel’s Channel 10 TV reported that Israeli forces shot one of the Palestinians after the attack Monday afternoon.

Two of the attacks happened in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron where about 500 Jewish settlers live.

The rumors ignited clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian activists who hurled stones and firebombs at them from inside the mosque, and the violence has spread.

Most of the attackers have been young Palestinians wielding knives and believed to be acting on their own. “And (Palestinian) President (Mahmoud) Abbas and other people in positions of power, to try to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding”, he said.

Netanyahu and Kerry are planning to meet in Berlin next week, according to United States and Israeli officials, though the exact details have yet to be confirmed.

Protesters in London and Paris have also taken to streets to voice their support for Palestinians.