Israel arrests 25 Palestinians for stone-throwing at security forces

Unrest however hit the flashpoint Hebron area in the southern West Bank, with Israeli forces shooting a Palestinian woman who allegedly tried to stab a soldier. Salah Hashlamoun told NBC News that his daughter died from her wounds in the hospital and disputed the Israeli military’s account.

Hashlamoun was taken to the Shaare Zedek Medical Centre, Jerusalem. A family member said Hadeel al-Hashlamun, a 19-year-old student, was taken to an Israeli hospital where she was later declared dead.

The current violence against Palestinian worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem is a logical extension of this Zionist ambition.

Witnesses allege she was shot 10 times because she refused to reveal the contents of her purse or lift her face veil.

According to security officials, there have been more than 5,000 incidents of rock throwing so far this year in the city, the great bulk of them involving Arab youths targeting Israeli cars in East Jerusalem and Israeli homes bordering Arab neighborhoods.

The statement referred to underground excavations under and around the al-Aqsa mosque, tunnel digging that incited Palestinians to revolt in September 1996, followed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit in 2000 sparking the second Palestinian uprising.

Police were set to deploy 2,000 policemen across the city, fearing escalating violence Wednesday, since this year’s Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha coincides with Yom Kippur, also known as the “day of atonement”, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

Even though I wasn’t very religious, it was hard not to be enamored by the Old City and its religious sites, and to know that the Western Wall and the Holy Sepulchre, holy to Jews and Christians respectively, were only short walks away.

With such rightwing, extremist politicians at his side, Netanyahu’s designs in Jerusalem, consistent with the political mood in Israel today, are also consistent with plans enacted by his predecessors many years ago. The 18-year-old later died from her wounds, her father said. They identified him as 21-year-old Dia al-Talahmeh.

Clashes flare up on an nearly daily basis at the al-Aqsa mosque compound between Palestinian worshipers and Israeli police, where Palestinians accuse Orthodox Jews of “storming” the al-Aqsa mosque compound during Jewish holidays. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said some women were being barred from entering because they were part of an outlawed group that sees itself as defenders of the Muslim holy site and tries to disrupt Jewish visits to the site.