More violence rocks West Bank, Israel

Over the past week, four Israelis have been killed along with seven Palestinians, four of them after alleged attacks on Israelis.

“This is the conduct of an occupying army that should be tainted with all of these shames”, Mansour said.

His office said that as a former military officer the mayor was licensed to carry the weapon.

At a press conference with the country’s top defense officials, Netanyahu tried to calm jittery Israelis. The attacker was tackled and taken into custody. In a reflection of the tense atmosphere, police were seen searching the shoes of a few Palestinian passengers at a Jerusalem light rail station.

At least three Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces since the intensification of violence a week ago. With Israeli-Jordanian peace now in place, the West Bank has proved more of a population burden than a strategic asset.

The assailant was identified as Subhi Ibrahim Mohammed Khalifa, 19, of the Shuafat refugee camp near Jerusalem, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. The mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, has called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to “increase sanctions and act decisively against those who incite and encourage terrorism”.

The gunmen were immediately joined by IDF soldiers and together they opened fire at the Palestinian protesters and began arresting them.

Those who came to the BBC website after the attack would be led to believe that the Hamas terrorist was actually the victim!

Earlier today, a Jewish man was stabbed in Kiryat Arba in the West Bank. Later, an unidentified Arab used a screwdriver to wound four Israelis, including a female soldier, in Tel Aviv before he was shot and killed by a soldier.

The officer was lightly injured and the Palestinian assailant was killed, police said. With the attacks spilling into the Israeli heartland, Netanyahu has warned Israelis to be on guard.

On Wednesday, a Palestinian woman stabbed two Israelis in Jerusalem.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinians will not be “dragged” into more violence with Israel, even as a Palestinian attacker stabbed a Jewish seminary student in Jerusalem.

Leader of the Opposition Isaac Herzog said the West Bank should be sealed until the wave of violence that Israel is now facing subsides.

“The prime minister can not just order to violate people’s freedom of movement”, Mr Zahalka said after he was blocked from ascending to the compound by the Israeli police on Thursday.

Still, he says their “hands are with those who are protecting Al-Aqsa mosque”.

The hilltop religious site is a frequent flashpoint and its fate is a core issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Israeli regime claims the woman had a knife and stabbed the colonist, but eyewitnesses disputed the claim, saying there were no traces of blood at the scene before the woman was shot. Palestinians all over occupied Palestine suffer as a result of the lack of accountability and the impunity granted to Israel by the worldwide community.

Israeli police are barring young Muslim men from Jerusalem’s most sensitive site as a measure to ensure calm after several days of violence.

The protest started to spread into Israel late Tuesday night, as a demonstration in Jaffa, a city in the southern part of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality, turned violent after police arrived to disperse it.