Palestinian rams auto into Israelis in West Bank

On Saturday, Israeli forces blocked roads out of Hebron and raided Palestinian homes as they launched a manhunt for assailants behind the shootings a day earlier of two Jewish teenagers outside the mosque, which is known to Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Such domestic scrutiny is touchy for the U.S.-backed Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces have quietly helped Israel curb violence in the West Bank while he publicly condemns Israeli crackdowns and policies regarding a contested Jerusalem shrine.

On Friday however, two Israelis were shot and wounded by unknown assailants as they visited a flashpoint holy site in the city along with several thousand others, the army said. The Palestinian health ministry said that more than ten Palestinians injured by Israeli gunfire.

One man died after being shot by Israeli soldiers on the border with Gaza after a protest turned violent.

On Friday night, three Israeli soldiers were injured in two separate shooting incidents allegedly carried out by Palestinians in the Hebron area.

Al-Qedra said that 18 Palestinian young men were killed and more than 300 wounded since the beginning of the wave of tension between Israel and the Palestinians that started in October 1 allover the Palestinian territories. The attacker managed to flee the scene.

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian woman, whom they accused of running over a number of Israelis in the town of al-Khalil (Hebron) in the West Bank.

The military said the auto slowed down and then sped toward the soldiers, who were able to get out of the way before firing at the vehicle. The Israeli army believes he may have been a sniper.

Home to 200,000 Palestinians, al-Khalil sees frequent cases of violence as hundreds of Israeli settlers also live in the city, which has been the scene of near-daily clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters.

Near the Israeli settlement of Psagot, close to the West Bank city of Ramallah, youths and soldiers clashed in a residential area during a torrential downpour.

The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday rejected Palestinian allegations that Israel had recently harvested organs from Palestinians its forces had killed, condemning the charges as anti-Semitic.