Israel Agrees to Release Bodies of Hebron Knife Attackers

On Friday the Israeli army returned the body of Kemil and those of six other Palestinians killed by Israeli troops or police to their families in what appeared to be an effort to ease tensions. Thousands of Palestinians attended the funerals of the terrorists, two of whom were female.

They waved Palestinian flags and chanted “we will die but Palestine will live on”.

Video footage emerged later Friday showing a Palestinian with a large rock in his right hand chasing a soldier during clashes near Ramallah.

In the West Bank, two Palestinians carrying knives ran toward an Israeli checkpoint, drawing fire from troops who killed one and critically wounded the other, according to police and a Palestinian medic.

Nineteen Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire in West Bank clashes Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

The visit comes as Israel and the Palestinians grapple with another wave of deadly violence amid fears that nearly daily clashes and knife attacks could herald a third Palestinian uprising, or intifada.

The Palestinians were injured by Israeli troops’ gunfire during the clashes that broke out in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus, and on the borderline area between eastern, northern and southern Gaza Strip and Israel. He accused them of inciting attacks against Israelis, and spurring demonstrations across the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza that have led to the killings of Palestinian protesters.

In a message of protest addressed to the President of the European Parliament’s Palestine Committee and a number of its members, the Forum demanded a European role in supporting the Palestinian people and the principles of global law that are being violated by Israel.

“We are not going to cancel, we will not cancel anything”, he added, as long as “Israel respects its obligations”.

The draft resolution demands that both Israel and the Palestinians take steps “to end the violence, avoid incitement and protect civilians”.

Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat said that Abbas dropped a file of Israeli violations that consists of 53 pages to the ICC. Soldiers manning checkpoints have been given electromagnetic inspection devices in order to help them spot potential attackers before they carry out an attack.

Shortly before he was shot, Fadel al-Qawasmeh had passed through Checkpoint 56 on al-Shuhada Street, which separates the section of Hebron ostensibly under Palestinian control from the Old City where illegal Israeli settlements are located. One dealt with alleged Israeli crimes committed in Gaza.

Hebron – home to a shrine known to Jews as Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque – is a city of 200,000 Palestinians, has always been the commercial heart of the West Bank. “There’s no shortage of weapons, know-how and potential for suicide attacks [in the West Bank]”.

One Palestinian was buried separately in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. Many of those killed have been shot in anti-Israeli protests.

Since the start of October, the violence has included stabbings as well as clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces have killed at least 65 Palestinians with only 10 Israelis killed in resistance actions.