Palestinian Rioters Set Fire To Joseph’s Tomb In West Bank

The meeting of the 15-member Security Council was not expected to produce any immediate action.

The Foreign Press Association for Israel and the Palestinian territories said the attack was carried out by someone posing as a journalist and called on local Palestinian media organizations to verify all credentials.

Mr Abbas has tried to lower the temperature, telling his security commanders that armed attacks on Israelis counter Palestinian interests. The current crisis can not be resolved by security measures alone, Zerihoun warned. Troops manned roadblocks in Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, a centre of unrest, and ordered a few Palestinian men to lift their shirts to show they were not armed. But he also blamed “the apparent heavy-handed approach by Israeli security services” and “the impact of social media and irresponsible rhetoric” for the escalation.

Samantha Power, Permanent Representative of the US to the United Nations told the Security Council that the United States “continues to support Israel’s right to defend its citizens”.

The director-general of Israel’s foreign ministry, Dore Gold, said: “The burning of Joseph’s tomb forcefully demonstrates what would happen in the holy places in Jerusalem if they were in the hands of the Palestinian leadership”.

A tinder-box for Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest in Judaism.

“Let me be crystal clear -Israel will not agree to any global presence on the Temple Mount”.

Danon said “any such intervention would violate the decades-long status quo”. Ironically, every Palestinian who picks up a knife with murderous intentions ultimately threatens that which will secure a future for his own people: compromise, reconciliation and coexistence. A reporter for Palestine TV said a cameraman working for the channel was shot in the leg during the protest.

In February 2010, the Israeli government said it wanted to list the tomb along with the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem as Israeli historic monuments.

Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad called for a “day of rage” in the region Friday following afternoon prayers in the mosques.

He said the arson “offends our culture and our religion and our morals”, and that the damage would be repaired.

A Palestinian man wearing a T-shirt with the word “press” in large letters stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier before being shot dead by troops.

The victim was evacuated for emergency medical care.

Palestinian rioters set fire to Joseph’s Tomb, a Jewish holy monument, located on the outskirts of the West Bank, an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman said Friday.

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israeli security forces braced for more violence in the eastern part of the city, where numerous Palestinian attackers lived, and Israeli forces were tightly controlling movement.

The attack comes after human rights groups and journalists condemned “summary executions” of Palestinians by Israeli security forces, according to the Electronic Intifada, which says at least 32 Palestinians have been killed since October. 1 when violence first began to escalate, with at least 17 of those Palestinians killed while protesting.

Israeli authorities have been preventing men under the age of 40 from entering the al-Aqsa mosque, which Mr Awad said is “not just a religious symbol” but also a political one and a point of Palestinian identity.