Israel carries out punitive home demolitions in East Jerusalem

Israeli prosecutors have filed murder charges against a man and a boy for an arson attack in the occupied West Bank that killed three members of a Palestinian family and helped fuel the fiercest eruption of street violence in years.

A Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier near Bethlehem before being shot and killed while in Herzlya, north of Tel Aviv, Israeli police were searching Tuesday for a suspected Palestinian attacker who drove a auto through a roadblock on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israeli military radio said. Most of the others were killed in clashes with security forces.

Amiram Ben Oleal, 21, was indicted on Sunday for murder on the basis of a hate crime, and the second, a minor, was indicted as an accessory to murder.

In a wave of Palestinian attacks since October 1 – including stabbings, vehicle rammings and gunfire targeting security forces and civilians – 22 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean have been killed.

Violence since the start of October has claimed the lives of 140 on the Palestinian side, as well as 22 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.

In the same report, PCHR said, “Israeli forces continued to impose collective punishment measures on the Gaza Strip, which have escalated since the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, in which Hamas won the majority of seats of the Palestinian Legislative Council”.

The arson attack followed days of tensions over West Bank settlements, with rightwing groups opposing the demolition of two buildings under construction that the Israeli High Court said were illegal.

Israel says the violence is being fanned by a Palestinian campaign of incitement. The Palestinians say it is rooted in frustration stemming from almost five decades of Israeli occupation.

The indictment said that Mr Ben-Uliel admitted spraying graffiti on the Dawabsha family home and then tossing a firebomb through a bedroom window before fleeing the scene.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), for its part, said that a total of 539 Palestinians’ homes were demolished by Israeli authorities and 742 Palestinians were forced to leave their homes.

In a statement Sunday, a settlers group praised the indictments, saying it was “now clear that these acts were perpetrated by a fringe group of anarchists bent on destroying the State of Israel and the freedom and justice that it represents”. “They would not have launched an investigation were it not for the worldwide pressure on them”, he said.

Israeli soldiers patrolling the West Bank will soon get new protection in the form of neck guards, an army official told The Times of Israel Monday.