Blades of gory
Bibi rages as 3 more stabbings rock Israel
JERUSALEM — Palestinians carried out three stabbings Monday in Jerusalem, leaving a teenage Israeli boy in critical condition, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angrily accused the country’s Arab leaders of helping incite weeks of violence.
Two of the attackers, both teenage boys, were killed.
In a fiery speech at parliament, Netanyahu accused Arab parties of “undermining” the country. He called on Israel’s Arab citizens to “kick out the extremists among you.”
Monday’s attacks were the latest in a monthlong wave of IsraeliPalestinian violence.
In a new setback for efforts to restore calm, a Palestinian official said a delegation of Mideast peace envoys had called off a trip to the region.
Israeli police reported three stabbings across the city, including an assault by two teens in the East Jerusalem area of Pisgat Zeev. Police said the pair seriously wounded a 20yearold man before attacking a teenage boy on a bicycle.
The boy was critically wounded before police shot and killed one of the attackers, while the second was run over by a car.
Abdel Nasser Manasra, a relative of the suspected attackers, Ahmed, 13, and Hassan, 15, said both were cousins. He did not know which had been killed.
Other attacks occurred in Jeru salem’s Old City, where a 17yearold assailant was killed, and outside the national police headquarters, where an attacker, identified as a 16yearold girl, was shot and wounded, while a police officer was lightly hurt.
Since unrest began last month, five Israelis have been killed in stabbings, a shooting and a stoning attack on a vehicle, while at least 25 Palestinians, including 10 attackers, have been slain.
Several Palestinian children, including a 2yearold girl killed with her mom in a Gaza airstrike, are among the dead. Hundreds of Palestinians have been wounded in clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank.
The attackers, many of them teens, have had no affiliation with militant groups, and the seemingly random nature of the stabbings has made it difficult to predict or prevent them.
In his speech, Netanyahu dismissed the Palestinian accusations as a “total lie” and accused the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Hamas and Israel’s own Islamic Movement of incitement. He called on President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Palestinian Authority, to condemn the violence.
But Netanyahu also went after Arab lawmakers in the chamber, accusing two of them of supporting the violence.
“It is unbelievable that an Israeli member of parliament calls for terror attacks against Israelis,” he said.