Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on

A deadly firefight broke out Wednesday in the heart of Jerusalem between Israeli police officers and three Palestinian assailants armed with rifles, knives and bombs, Israeli police said.

Three Palestinian attackers have been shot dead in Jerusalem after shooting and stabbing two Israeli paramilitary policewomen, according to Israeli police.

A spokesperson for the hospital said that the other police officer, 18 years old, was in moderate condition, having received stab wounds across her body.

Two Israeli minors convicted in the 2014 murder of Palestinian teen Mohammad Abu Khdeir were sentenced Thursday.

The men opened fire at the guards at an entrance to the Old City, before being shot dead by Israeli security forces.

Israel has experienced a spate of violence since October.

The incidents raised tension that ended in a seven-week Israeli offensive against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip triggered by cross-border Palestinian rocket attacks and an Israeli roundup of suspected militants in the West Bank.

Israeli forces then invaded Qabatiya, raiding dozens of houses and arresting at least 12 Palestinians.

There was no unrest in Palestinian areas in response to the verdict but the real test may come when the killers are sentenced in January.

Speaking about the latest violence, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said there was evidence the assailants were seeking to carry out a major attack.

The officers stopped them, and as they began checking one of their ID cards, the other two drew guns and knives and attacked two female officers, wounding one seriously and the other critically, police said.

The Israeli foreign ministry denounced CBS for its bias headline and CBS only slightly tweaked the headline, saying: “Israeli police kill 3 alleged Palestinian attackers”.

A relative of the two teenagers, 31-year-old Israeli settler Yosef Haim Ben-David, is accused of leading the ethnically charged killing.

Abu Khdeir’s death sparked Palestinian riots, escalating the spiral of violence that eventually lead to the Gaza war in the summer of 2014.

While the expansion of Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem had slowed in 2015, the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes had increased, an Israeli non-governmental organization said in a report on Wednesday.

Hadar Cohen, 19, who was in training to become a member of the paramilitary unit, died at the Hadassah Har Hazofim hospital after suffering critical wounds from the attack at the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem.