AFP/Jerusalem
Stabbings at an entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City and near a bus stop yesterday left two people wounded and an attacker killed, while Israel closed a third Palestinian radio station accused of incitement.
The attacks and closure of the station came with Israeli security forces struggling to halt two months of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming assaults.
Several weeks ago, an Israeli security crackdown in Jerusalem, including roadblocks in Palestinian neighbourhoods, was followed by a lull in attacks in the city, but violence has returned.
Early yesterday, a 38-year-old Palestinian stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli border police officer at Damascus Gate, a main entrance point for Palestinians to East Jerusalem’s Old City and the site of several previous attacks.
The attacker was identified as Bassem Salah from the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Later in the morning, a foreign woman of around 30 was lightly wounded in a stabbing near a bus station in west Jerusalem and the attacker fled.
Police said a Palestinian suspect was later arrested near the scene.
Further details on the victim were not immediately provided.
Violence since October 1 has left 100 dead on the Palestinian side, including an Arab Israeli, as well as 17 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.
Many of the Palestinians killed have been alleged attackers, while others have been shot dead by Israeli security forces during clashes.
Israeli troops yesterday shot and wounded a Palestinian during what the army called a “violent riot” in the occupied West Bank.
A military spokeswoman said Palestinians hurled rocks and petrol bombs and fired slingshots at Israeli forces in Al Bireh, between the town of Ramallah and the Jewish settlement of Beit El.
“The force identified a rioter with a lit fire bomb in hand,” she said. “The force fired at the rioter... and a hit was confirmed.”
The extent of the man’s injuries was not immediately known.
A visit last week by US Secretary of State John Kerry failed to produce any breakthrough, and debate has intensified within Israel on whether to take conciliatory steps to ease tensions or to respond more forcefully.
Palestinian leaders blame Israel for the wave of violence, saying its continued occupation and settlement building along with a lack of progress in peace efforts have led to hopelessness among young people.
Many of the attackers have been young Palestinians, including teenagers, who appear to have acted on their own.
In the flashpoint southern West Bank city of Hebron, the army shut down Dream radio station, the third private broadcaster it has closed there, accusing it of stoking the violence.
An Israeli minister last week raised the threat of shutting down Palestinian public broadcasters as well, charging they were fanning the flames.
Hebron, considered a West Bank stronghold of Hamas, has been the focus of much of the latest violence.
Talab Jaabari, owner of the station closed yesterday, said soldiers arrived and seized “all the material and caused significant damage to the station”.
He said he received a written order to close for six months and accusing his station of “broadcasting programmes with the aim of promoting and encouraging terrorism against civilians and Israeli security forces”.
Al Khalil and Al Hurriya radio stations in Hebron were also closed earlier this month on similar grounds.
Such closures have been among a raft of security measures taken by Israel in a bid to halt the attacks.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced tighter controls on Palestinian vehicles and an increase in the number of so-called “bypass roads” which create separate routes for Palestinians and Jewish settlers.
He said work permits would be withdrawn from the families of alleged attackers and there would be “no limits” on the powers of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, where some 400,000 Jewish settlers live among 2.8mn Palestinians.
Israel has also controversially demolished the homes of alleged attackers in a bid to deter further violence.
In addition, Netanyahu’s government has banned the northern wing of Israel’s main Islamist organisation, accusing it of instigating violence.
A Palestinian demonstrator uses a slingshot to hurl rocks at Israeli security forces during clashes yesterday in the town of Al Bireh on the outskirts
