Israeli police: 2 Palestinian attackers killed in West Bank

Surveillance footage showed a Palestinian man approaching a security checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron on Saturday morning.

Israel has in turn repeatedly accused Abbas of failing to condemn the wave of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and security forces that erupted late previous year, and says his PA hierarchy presides over incitement to terror and violence against Israel. Israel says the vast majority were attackers, though Palestinians have accused Israeli forces of using excessive force or killing people who were not assailants.

As a flare-up of a almost year-old wave of Palestinian street attacks entered a second day, the military said Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian who stabbed and wounded a soldier in the West Bank on Saturday.

Spokeswoman Luba Samri says the man pulled out a knife and rushed at officers outside the Old City who opened fire Friday.

Since October, 227 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, one Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in ongoing violence, according to an AFP count.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, condemned Israel for the “extra-judicial killings” of the attackers but did not condemn the attacks themselves.

“Israel is flagrantly employing a systematic and wilful policy of summary executions against the Palestinian people; such provocative acts are in direct violation of global law and conventions”, she said.

The soldier was taken to hospital for treatment, the military said.

A spokesperson for the IDF sad attacks were “just another example of the danger of Palestinian incitement spread through social media”.

“We call on the worldwide community to engage rapidly and effectively and to hold Israel accountable with punitive measures before it is too late”.

Israeli forces say most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.

In recent months, the frequency of what had been near-daily attacks had slowed. The Palestinians say it is rooted in almost 50 years of military occupation and dwindling hopes for independence.