Palestinians inspecting the damage following an Israeli army operation to arrest Hamas leader Qas al-Saadi at his home in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
AFP
Jerusalem
Israel yesterday barred Palestinians from Jerusalem’s Old City amid fears of further violence after attacks killed two Israelis and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of further crackdowns.
Netanyahu convened his ministers of defence and internal security and top security officials immediately after landing back in Israel yesterday from delivering a speech to the UN General Assembly.
“These steps include, among others, speeded up demolition of (suspects’) homes,” he said in a video address in Hebrew distributed by his office.
The Old City restrictions announced earlier yesterday by police will be in place for two days, with only Israelis, tourists, residents of the area, business owners and students allowed.
Worship at the Al Aqsa mosque compound will be limited to men aged 50 and above. There will be no age restrictions on women.
The Palestinian government denounced “Israeli escalation” after the announcement of the ban, which Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan called unprecedented.
Netanyahu said he instructed ministers on steps “to deter and punish the attackers”.
They would also include broader use of detention without trial for suspects, further reinforcement of security forces in occupied Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank and restraining orders keeping unspecified “inciters” away from Al Aqsa.
The usually bustling alleyways of the walled Old City were mostly quiet yesterday morning, with hundreds of police guarding entrances.
Around 300,000 Palestinians live in occupied East Jerusalem, where the Old City is located.
The latest attacks came with Israeli security forces already on alert after recent clashes at the Al Aqsa compound and surrounding Old City, as well as the murder in the West Bank on Thursday of a Jewish settler couple.
On Saturday night, a Palestinian killed two Israeli men and wounded a woman and a toddler in a knife and gun attack in the Old City. Police shot dead the alleged attacker.
In a separate incident early yesterday, a 19-year-old youth stabbed and wounded a 15-year-old passerby in west Jerusalem before being shot dead by police.
Video circulated on social media showed what appeared to be the alleged attacker walking as bystanders shouted “shoot him” in Hebrew before a policeman fired and he fell to the ground.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for calm, saying he was “deeply concerned that these latest incidents signal a dangerous slide toward escalation”.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Ban and appealed for international protection for his people from Israeli settler attacks, Abbas’s office said.
There have been fears that the sporadic violence could spin out of control, with some warning of the risk of a third Palestinian Intifada, or uprising.
In his address on Thursday to the UN General Assembly, Abbas said he was no longer bound by previous accords with Israel, accusing the Israeli government of violating them.
There were clashes elsewhere in Jerusalem and the West Bank overnight and yesterday, and the Red Crescent reported 77 Palestinians wounded from both live rounds and rubber bullets.
Another 139 were treated for tear gas inhalation and six for injuries sustained in beatings by soldiers or Jewish settlers, a Red Crescent spokeswoman said.
Clashes broke out in Jenin and on the outskirts of Ramallah in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, including the neighbourhood of Abu Tor, where the attacker in yesterday morning’s stabbing was from.
