Palestinian violence flares in West Bank and Gaza

Five Palestinians were killed on Friday in the clashes that broke out between Palestinians and the Israeli army in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

Also, in the West Bank, a Palestinian posing as a journalist stabbed and injured a soldier and was shot dead.

Joseph’s Tomb is located in the city of Nablus, in the West Bank in an area under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority and has been attacked before.

The Hebron attacker, who was wearing a visibility jacket and a t-shirt labelled “Press”, attacked the soldier after engaging him in conversation, an eyewitness told Al-Aqsa TV.

Nine human rights groups in Israel expressed concern Wednesday over what they said has been “a worrying trend to use firearms to kill Palestinians who have attacked Israelis or are suspected of such attacks”.

The foreign press association in Israel and the Palestinian territories said it deplored the attack and called on Palestinian media organizations to verify all staff credentials.

A few Palestinians had formed a barricade to prevent Israeli troops from entering Nablus to destroy Palestinian homes when a small group broke off and tried to set fire to the tomb, a Palestinian official told CNN.

The latest round of violence has been partly fueled by Palestinian anger at what they see as increased Jewish encroachment on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, holy to both Muslims and Jews.

Palestinians burn tires during clashes with Israeli troops near Ramallah, West Bank, Friday, October 16, 2015.

Asked about his remark to Israeli opposition leader Issac Herzog that there can not be a State on the basis of religion, the President said what he said was that “mere religion can not be the basis of a State”.

More than 50 Israelis have been attacked, eight of them killed, mostly by knife attacks while waiting for buses and in other innocent pursuits, mostly by men under 20, mostly from East Jerusalem, a largely Palestinian neighborhood in Israel where the Palestinian Authority exercises no authority. The fire was extinguished and the crowd dispersed by Palestinian forces.

Like the second Intifada, which was blamed on Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, Palestinian leadership is using a bogus claim to promote violence that is nothing short of anti-Jewish, racist incitement. “The secretary-general calls on all sides to respect the sanctity of all holy sites, refrain from any inflammatory actions or statements and reject the extremist elements that are pursuing a political agenda seeking to transform the current situation into a religious conflict”.

Israeli officials have released security camera videos of the attacks, sometimes within minutes.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Friday on the upsurge of violence.

The fate of a Palestinian boy seized center stage Thursday in the battle of narratives accompanying the recent burst of deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence.