Knife, auto attacks in West Bank wound 5, attackers shot

A rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave slammed into open ground in Israel, but caused no apparent casualties, the Israeli army said in a statement.

Israeli leaders across the political spectrum have strongly condemned the firebomb attack and vowed to apprehend the assailants.

On the ground level, the intensity of the violence between Palestinians and Israelis has relatively calmed down in the past few days, but tension is still high.

Also on Sunday, six Israelis were wounded in three separate attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank.

The woman had approached an Israeli checkpoint in the occupied West Bank wielding a knife, Israel’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.

On Sunday, security cameras captured the moment another Palestinian woman quietly pulled a knife from her purse while a security guard outside the community of Beitar Illit examined her identity card.

One Israeli legislator from the center-right Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, told Israeli soldiers in October that Palestinians who threaten Israeli troops or civilians “should be shot to be killed”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will discuss this outbreak of violence at the White House tomorrow. As many who follow the news outside the mainstream (due to the possible “media bias” Ms. Silver was referring to), Jewish settlement construction (which is illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention) continues to destroy Palestinian homes, depriving them of their right to live on land they’ve lived on for centuries, exclusively because they’re not Jewish.

Israeli forces on Monday set up flying checkpoints across the southern West Bank district of Hebron, as a search continued for suspected Palestinians who shot and injured two Israelis in Hebron’s Old City last week. Also on Friday, a firebomb was hurled at an Israeli vehicle south of Hebron, near the West Bank settlement of Omarim, Israel Radio reported.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Arabi called on the UN Security Council and others to work towards an end to the conflict, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

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

From the start, Israel stressed it has no designs on Al Aqsa – a compound overseen by the Islamic “waqf” trust as part of a long-standing status quo agreement – insisting that the violence followed attacks on Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall, stoned by Muslims using the compound as safe haven. Palestinians say the violence is rooted in a lack of hope for gaining independence after years of failed peace efforts. A September 2015 poll said that 65 percent of Palestinians want President Abbas to resign.