New stabbing hits Jerusalem as Israel reels from violence
Israeli Arab
lawmakers vow to defy Al-Aqsa ban
AFP
AFP, JERUSALEM: A Palestinian stabbed a Jewish man in Jerusalem on Thursday in the latest in a spate of knife attacks, defying Israeli attempts to contain escalating violence.
The stabbings have deeply unnerved Israelis and authorities have struggled to prevent them, with the suspects often young Palestinians believed to be acting on their own.
Police said the victim of Thursdays attack was a 25-year-old Jewish man who was in a serious condition after being stabbed in the neck near one of Jerusalems main thoroughfares.
The attack took place near a tramway station close to the national police headquarters, police said. The 19-year-old suspect, said to be from Shuafat refugee camp in annexed east Jerusalem, later assaulted a tramway guard and tried to take his gun before fleeing.
He was arrested by police special forces who were in the area, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
At least four knife attacks have occurred in Jerusalem and six overall since Saturday, when a Palestinian killed two Israelis in the Old City, helping prompt an Israeli security crackdown.
Rioting in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank has seen youths throwing stones and firebombs face off against security forces firing rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.
Further clashes broke out at the Bet El checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday.
Over the past week, four Israelis have been killed and five Palestinians, three of them after alleged attacks on Israelis.
The unrest has sparked fears of a broader uprising, even a third intifada.
Israeli authorities have wrestled with how to respond, with far-right politicians calling for forceful action and security officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas seeking to avoid an escalation. An incident on Wednesday seemed to offer a rare glimpse of an Israeli undercover operation when masked infiltrators among a group of Palestinian stone-throwers suddenly pulled out pistols and opened fire as rocks flew towards them. The incident, captured on video by an AFP journalist, saw three Palestinians wounded, including one critically from a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Israeli civilians are at the forefront of a war against terrorism and must also be on maximum alert, Netanyahu said on Wednesday after visiting a Jerusalem police headquarters.Some Israeli mayors, including the mayor of Jerusalem, went as far as to encourage residents who own guns to carry them around with them.
While Abbas has spoken of wanting to avoid any escalation of the violence, many Palestinian youths are frustrated with his leadership as well as Israels right-wing government.
Netanyahu postponed a visit to Germany that had been scheduled for Thursday to tackle the violence.
Meanwhile Arab Israeli lawmakers have vowed to defy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus decision to bar parliament members from entering a sensitive Jerusalem holy site, pledging to visit it on Friday.
Netanyahu has issued the order against lawmakers and ministers in a bid to ease tensions after weeks of unrest. Arab lawmakers planned visit on Friday, when many Muslims attend weekly prayers there, will test enforcement of the ban.
Neither Netanyahu nor the right will be able to stop us from entering our Al-Aqsa mosque, Israeli Arab MP Ahmed Tibi said on Thursday, calling the ban senseless and illegal.
Thirteen of Israels 120 MPs are Arabs.
The Al-Aqsa compound has seen repeated clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian youths in recent weeks.
Provocative visits by Israeli Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel as well as by Israeli Arab lawmakers have added to the volatility.
