Israeli stabbed; violence at Lebanon rally

JERUSALEM: A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli security guard at Jerusalem’s main bus station on Sunday, police said, and violence flared near the US embassy in Beirut over US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Four days of street protests in the Palestinian territories over Trump’s announcement on Wednesday have largely died down, but his overturning of long-standing U.S. policy on Jerusalem -- a city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians -- drew more Arab warnings of potential damage to prospects for Middle East peace. “Our hope is that everything is calming down and that we are returning to a path of normal life without riots and without violence,” Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

But in Jerusalem, a security guard was in critical condition after a 24-year-old Palestinian man from the occupied West Bank stabbed him after approaching a metal detector at an entrance to the city’s central bus station, police said. The alleged assailant was taken into custody after a passer-by tackled him.

In Beirut, Lebanese security forces fired tear gas and water canons at protesters, some of them waving Palestinian flags, near the US embassy. Demonstrators set fires in the street, torched US and Israeli flags and threw projectiles towards security forces that had barricaded the main road to the complex.

Arab foreign ministers who met in Cairo on Saturday urged the United States to abandon its decision on Jerusalem and said the move would spur violence throughout the region.

Echoing that view, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, said the US move “could throw a lifebuoy to terrorist and armed groups, which have begun to lose ground” in the Middle East.