Israel on high alert as stabbing attacks continue
A rash of individual attacks between Palestinians and Israelis are threatening to spread throughout Israel as tensions increase.
A 14-year-old Israeli and a police officer were stabbed in separate incidents while an Israeli stabbed four Arabs in the southern city of Dimona.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian woman tried to stab a security guard at the bus station in Afula, in northern Israel, police said. The guard opened fire and injured the woman before she could hurt anybody, officers added.
The attempted stabbing came shortly after a Palestinian attacked a police officer with a knife and tried to grab his gun near the entrance to the Kiryat Arba settlement in the West Bank. The officer was lightly injured and killed his attacker, police said.
Less than an hour earlier, a Palestinian used a vegetable peeler to stab and injure a 14-year-old Israeli in Jerusalem before he was arrested, police said.
Earlier, two members of Israel’s Bedouin minority and two Palestinians were wounded in a stabbing by an Israeli man in Dimona, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said. The men were taken to hospital for treatment.
Ms Samri said attacks were probably “nationalistically” motivated. Israeli media reported the stabber said after his arrest that he carried out the attacks in retaliation for the Palestinian attacks on Israelis this week.
Dimona mayor Beni Bitton said the stabber was a “mentally ill man”. He told Channel 10 TV that two of the victims worked for City Hall, and that passers-by quickly helped the wounded Arabs and provided first aid.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “strongly condemned the harming of innocent Arabs”. He said whoever uses violence will be brought to justice.
In Jerusalem, Israeli security forces braced themselves for more unrest, barring young Palestinian men from a sacred Jerusalem Old City site in an attempt to restore calm. Ms Samri said men under 45 are barred from the Al-Aqsa mosque compound while women of all ages can enter.
The age limit has been set intermittently in an attempt to ensure peace at the site, as mostly younger Palestinians are involved in the violence.
The unrest began three weeks ago as Palestinians repeatedly barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque and hurled rocks and firebombs at police.
It was fuelled by Palestinian allegations that Israel plans to change the delicate arrangement at the hilltop compound, holy to Jews and Muslims. Israel has adamantly denied the allegations and accused Palestinian leaders of incitement.
The attacks were initially confined to east Jerusalem, site of the sacred compound, and the West Bank – both territories captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 war and claimed by the Palestinians for their future state. But this week the violence has spread to Tel Aviv, Afula and other Israeli cities.
What began as Palestinians throwing rocks and firebombs at passing cars and police morphed into a deadly shooting and a rash of knife attacks in which Palestinians stabbed Israeli civilians and soldiers in the streets. Four Palestinians have been killed after carrying out attacks against Israelis since Saturday. Three Palestinian protesters were killed in clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank during that time.
The Red Crescent medical service said more than 500 Palestinians have been injured in West Bank protests since the weekend including about 100 from live fire.
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of a 19-year-old who killed two Israelis last week.
Mourners marched in a funeral procession for Mohannad Halabi after Friday prayers.
Halabi stabbed two Israelis to death and wounded a mother and toddler in a rampage in Jerusalem’s Old City before he was killed by police on Saturday.
He was wrapped in Palestinian flags and held aloft on a stretcher to be carried through the crowd.
