Security forces arrest Palestinian woman in attempted stabbing attack in West Bank

Twenty-one Israelis and one US citizen were killed since the start of the current wave of violence in October, in lone wolf stabbing, vehicular and shooting attacks perpetrated by Palestinians.

Last week, the forces shot and killed a 15-year-old from the Nablus-area village of Beit Furik after he reportedly drew a knife on soldiers at the Huwwara checkpoint. Israel says 88 of them were attacking or attempting to attack Israelis while the rest died in clashes with Israeli troops.

On Saturday afternoon, there were clashes with security forces after around 150 Palestinians demonstrated near the wall of the Old City in east Jerusalem to protest an Israeli policy of keeping the bodies of killed attackers rather than returning them to their families, a police statement said.

“Forces responded to the imminent danger and fired towards the perpetrator”, the military said, adding that one soldier had been wounded and evacuated to hospital.

On Friday, Israeli border guards killed a Palestinian woman who tried to ram a vehicle into them in the West Bank, while three incidents on Thursday resulted in three dead assailants and three injured police officers.

The Palestinian health ministry says the two were relatives, and aged 17 and 23.

Mahdiyya Hammad, 38, was shot dead in her auto at a checkpoint near Silwad, a small West Bank town some 12 kilometres north-east of Ramallah.

The attacks on Sunday are the latest in a series of deadly stabbing incidents attributed to the Palestinian-Israeli tensions since mid-September.

Thousands of people gathered on Saturday for the funeral of a Palestinian woman shot dead by Israeli forces a day earlier.

Palestinian leaders say a younger generation sees no hope for the future living under Israeli security restrictions and with a stifled economy.

Violence has also been prompted by anger over stepped-up Israeli visits to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque compound.