Palestinian injures Israeli lightly in stabbing by Kfar Adumim

A Palestinian assailant stabbed and wounded four Israelis in the southern town of Kiryat Gat on Saturday, police said, shortly after the United States announced its top diplomat would travel to the region to try to ease tensions.

Analysts said it was a concerning new trend as the perpetrator had a permit to work in Israel, was married with five children and had no previous criminal record.

Violence since the start of October has killed at least 86 people on the Palestinian side, including one Arab Israeli, 15 Israelis, an American and an Ethiopian.

The attack bears the hallmarks of the recent spike in violence between Israelis and Palestinians, caused by a dispute over Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, the Al-Aqsa mosque. More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.

The attack brought to 18 the number of Israelis and others who have died, along with 80 Palestinians, in a wave of violence over the past seven weeks.

In Thursday’s first attack, a knife-wielding man stabbed and killed two Israelis as several of them gathered for afternoon prayers at an office building in the Israeli commercial centre of Tel Aviv.

The bloodshed has been driven in part by Muslim agitation over stepped-up Jewish visits to a contested Jerusalem shrine, and by long-deadlocked talks on a U.S.-sponsored peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

There has been a wave of violence over the past two months, leaving dozens dead. The attack occurred in an area known to Israelis as Samaria Junction and to Palestinians as Hawwara Junction.

The West Bank attacker was shot, the army said, but the assailant s condition was not clear.

A Palestinian driving a taxi attempted to ram into civilians in the West Bank and charged at them with a knife before being shot dead, police said Sunday, in the second attack of the day. “The Police is searching after him”, Ofir Gendelman said on Twitter Saturday.