Palestinian man, woman shot dead by Israeli forces

Over the past two months, Palestinian attacks have killed 17 Israelis, mostly in stabbings, while 86 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.

The 16-year-old attacker was shot and killed by an Israeli police officer, while her 14-year-old accomplice was shot and wounded. The Palestinians say the violence is rooted in frustration over almost a half-century of occupation and they accuse Israel of using excessive force to suppress the unrest.

The soldier who was killed, in his 20s, was pronounced dead by paramedics on the scene after making intensive efforts to resuscitate him, Magen David Adom emergency ambulance service said.

A almost week-long lull in the violence was shattered on Thursday when knife, gun and car-ramming attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank killed five people, including an American, three Israelis and a Palestinian. Earlier on Monday, two Palestinian female teens used scissors to stab an elderly Palestinian man, and a 27-year-old guard was injured assisting him. Soldiers deployed near the gas station shot and killed the assailant, from the village of Katana.

An IDF soldier was stabbed and later died from his injuries at around 3 p.m. on Monday at a gas station along Route 443 north of Jerusalem, Israeli media reported. Hadar Buchris, 21, was pronounced dead at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center after doctors were unable to save her. A soldier also standing at the hitchhiking stand shot and killed her assailant. The victim was identified by the police as a Palestinian man. Another man was wounded while trying to stop the attack.

Also in the West Bank, near the Gush Etzion block of settlements south of Jerusalem, the young Israeli woman was stabbed and the Palestinian attacker was shot dead by security forces afterwards, police said.

In recent weeks, however, the violence had moved away from Jerusalem and its holy sites, to other Israeli centers and Palestinian areas in the West Bank such as Hebron.

A surge in street violence since October 1 has challenged Israel’s security system and alarmed its main ally the United States, whose Secretary of State John Kerry is due to visit the region this week. Kerry is expected to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday to help ease tensions, in what is to be his first visit to the area in a year. Israel has said it is within its rights to respond with lethal force to potentially deadly attacks.