Mother, toddler killed in air strike on Gaza

Thousands took the streets over the weekend in protests against the Israeli government and the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, since the 1967 Mideast War.

Reports suggested two Israelis were injured when the woman tried to stab them. “The rest retreated back into Gaza”, it said.

An Israeli policeman has been stabbed but unhurt and his assailant shot dead in the latest such attack in Jerusalem.

A Palestinian witness who was walking by heard the gunshots. “He wants to avoid problems that he is facing in the political and diplomatic arena, where he has failed miserably”, Malki told AFP.

The police officer was unharmed in the clash, Samri said.

In downtown Jerusalem, Israeli police said they arrested three young Israeli girls suspected of attacking a Palestinian employee at a store with pepper spray.

A Palestinian passerby disputed the police account, saying he had seen police shout at the man, then shoot him four times. Israeli police said they would release a video to prove that the incident was a stabbing attempt. “Police nearby shot and killed him, and a third officer was lightly wounded when he was accidentally struck by one of the bullets”, he said.

In a speech to parliament Monday, Netanyahu dismissed the claims as “incitement” and said a series of stabbings of Israelis “stems from the desire to annihilate us”.

In response to renewed rocket fire towards Israel, the military said it carried out air strikes in Gaza targeting Hamas weapons manufacturing facilities.

The air strike came on the same day as a auto bomb set off by a Palestinian woman at a checkpoint in the West Bank. “An innocent civilian’s house was bombed which killed a woman and her child”.

Israel says it launched an airstrike in the Gaza Strip Sunday after absorbing rocket fire from the region.

Israeli forces have killed at least 25 Palestinians, including 9 attackers, and wounded more than 100 in clashes in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The police called it a terrorist attack.

Eli Bin of Israel’s emergency service said the two Israelis and the Palestinian attacker were treated for injuries.

The Health Ministry reported Sunday that 24 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of October and more than 1,300 have been wounded by live and rubber-coated bullets. Clashes rocked West Bank cities Ramallah and Bethlehem yesterday.

The additional force will continue as necessary as “a primary preventive and deterrent measure”, the statement said.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini appealed against the escalation of violence on Sunday in separate phone calls to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Jewish and Muslim grassroots groups, self-declared defenders of their faiths, have played a key role in rising Israeli-Palestinian tensions, stepping up activities at a contested Jerusalem shrine at the heart of the current violence.