Palestinian attacker with knife shot and killed in West Bank

Later in the day, Israeli border guards shot and killed a Palestinian near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Five soldiers were wounded in a car-ramming attack near Hebron early Friday afternoon, initial reports indicate.

A Palestinian was killed today by Israeli police who claimed he rammed his auto into a group of Israelis in a bus stop near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. Israel says 57 of these were attackers, while the rest died in clashes with security forces.

The soldiers were lightly injured in the incident near the flashpoint city of Hebron, according to the emergency services.

According to Palestinian reports, the assailant was identified as Issa Arafat, an 18-year-old resident of Beit Umar.

“The ongoing Israeli occupation and economic blockade, along with the absence of any political horizon, have created the current state of despair and insecurity and prompted a reaction from Palestinian youth”, he added.

The Palestinian bus system in the West Bank is already underfunded and its operations are regularly hindered or halted by military checkpoints, clashes, and random passenger ID checks.

Unrelenting violence erupted in October over tensions surrounding a sensitive Jerusalem holy site and quickly spread across Israel and into the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Tsipras also met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Jerusalem Patriarch Theophilos. He was also killed by security forces.

The terrorist was shot and killed by security forces.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he opposes confidence-building gestures to the Palestinians until the violence subsides.

But a senior Israeli government official said there was no internal division over how to tackle Palestinian violence.