Palestinian with ‘press’ logo on shirt stabs soldier

Haaretz reported on Friday that young people had broken into Joseph’s Tomb and started throwing flamable objects into the complex when Palestinian security forces arrived and started firing into the air to break up the crowd.

A third intifada would be hopeless and self-destructive of any attempts toward Palestinian statehood.

The UN Security Council will hold a special meeting to discuss the situation. Palestinian President Abbas, despite accusations of incitement by Netanyahu, is apparently also trying to damp it down, though his government is feeble and discredited. A few Israelis accuse the media of anti-Israel bias or express anti-Arab sentiment, while others call for coexistence. He ordered the damage to be repaired and opened an investigation into the arson.

The Palestinian leader has faced heavy criticism over a statement on Wednesday night in which he claimed a Palestinian youth had been executed.

“Will Palestinians believe Israel – the occupier – when it says it wants to preserve the status quo when they see Israel at times turning a blind eye to these provocations?”

Two Palestinians died after being shot by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip Friday, the enclave’s health ministry said, the latest such incidents in more than two weeks of clashes and attacks.

16 stabbings having targeted Jews since October 3.

Later Saturday, he was to travel to Jerusalem to meet that city’s mayor, as well as victims of recent Palestinian stabbing attacks at a hospital. The army says the attacker was shot and killed by other soldiers.

The incident occurred at the Old City’s Lions Gate. They point to a growing number of Jewish activists, including Israeli politicians, who seek Jewish prayer rights on the mount, as well as to occasional Israeli restrictions on Muslim access.

Most of the attacks on Israelis were carried out by Palestinians with no known ties to militant groups.

The unrest has spread to the Gaza Strip, hit by three wars with Israel since 2008. She said the officers shot and killed the teenager after he tried to stab them.

In response to the stabbings, Israel has taken unprecedented measures, including setting up checkpoints in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem this week.

Ahead of the Day of Rage, rioting Palestinians burned the tomb of the biblical patriarch Joseph in Nablus. Gidon, a young Israeli who did not want his family name used, says every trip on the light rail that traverses Jerusalem leaves him “with a bad sense of foreboding”.

There were warnings that the fire could worsen the unrest. In one widely shared Facebook post, a Palestinian living in Tel Aviv said a neighbor demanded in a letter to building residents that he be “checked out” in light of the security situation.

Hundreds more have been wounded in clashes with Israeli forces.

In the past month alone, eight Israelis and 32 Palestinians have been killed in Jerusalem, and each killing can be traced back to one issue.

Like many in the so-called Oslo generation of Palestinians, who have little or no memory of previous Intifadas in Palestine, Iwidat only knows life under occupation as a second-class citizen.

Israel on Friday rejected Palestinian calls for an worldwide force to be deployed in East Jerusalem to promote calm around the Temple Mount and the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque. With no mastermind to pursue, that poses a major challenge to security forces.

Netanyahu has come under enormous pressure to halt the violence.

He accused both sides of escalating the tensions through their fiery rhetoric and called on all parties to work to restore calm.

I lived in Jerusalem during the most violent days of the Second Intifada, but today the fear on both sides seems even greater.

Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, West Bank.

Israel has adamantly denied the allegations, saying it has no plans to change the status quo at the site, where Jews are allowed to visit but not pray.