Israel struggles to quell tide of violent unrest
GAZA, Palestinian Territory • Unrest that erupted several weeks ago at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site spread Friday to Gaza in the form of deadly border clashes with Palestinian protesters, as Israeli security forces struggled to contain a wave of Palestinian stabbing attacks against civilians and soldiers.
For the first time since the current violence began, clashes broke out along the Gaza border after Palestinians in the territory ruled by the Islamist group Hamas rolled burning tires and threw rocks at Israeli troops on the frontier. Six Palestinians were killed and a dozen were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Recent days have seen a series of attacks by young Palestinians wielding household items like kitchen knives, screwdrivers and even a vegetable peeler. The youths had no known links to armed groups who have targeted Israeli soldiers and civilians at random, complicating security efforts.
The violence, including the first apparent revenge attack by an Israeli, raised fears of the unrest spiralling further out of control.
The unpredictability and brutality of the assaults, coupled with the young age of some of the attackers, have shocked Israelis and raised fears a new Palestinian intifada could be underway.
In Jerusalem, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded a 14-year-old Israeli with a vegetable peeler Friday before being arrested. In another attack near the entrance of Kiryat Arba, a West Bank settlement, a Palestinian was shot dead by a police officer after he attacked the officer with a knife and tried to seize his weapon, police said.
In northern Israel, a 29-year-old Arab-Israeli woman was shot and wounded while trying to stab people at a bus station in the town of Afula, where another stabbing had taken place the day before, police said.
Gaza-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh applauded the recent Palestinian stabbing attacks across Israel at a speech at Friday prayers, labelling it as an intifada.
Israeli officials have said the violence is not on that scale for now, but rather is of the kind unleashed periodically over the decades.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called it a “terror wave.” He and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas have tried to lower tensions in recent days but both appear unable to contain the unrest.
Veteran commentator Ben Caspit told Channel 10 that Israel is on the “seam line” between the violence spreading and containment. One of the challenges is that there is no clear identifiable enemy, with about half of “the lone-wolf ” attackers coming from East Jerusalem and the rest from the West Bank.
The acts are independent, spontaneous moments of rage, he said, noting the stabbings with the vegetable peeler and one involving a screwdriver the day before.
Household items are used as weapons because guns can be harder to get for Palestinians unaffiliated with groups such as Hamas.
Video on social media Friday showed the moments when Israeli security forces shot and wounded an Arab woman at the Afula bus station. Police said the woman, who wore a long robe and Islamic head scarf, had pulled a knife to stab a soldier and posed an “immediate threat.”
The video showed the woman surrounded by several security members of the security forces with their guns drawn. Israeli media said security personnel called to her in Arabic and Hebrew multiple times to put the weapon down and that she had waved it while yelling, “Death to police.” The police later released video of a long-bladed kitchen knife they said she had used.
The woman was shot in her lower body and treated at a hospital.
The latest unrest began about three weeks ago, when Palestinians repeatedly barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, hurling stones, firebombs and fireworks at police.
It was fuelled by Palestinian allegations that Israel plans to change the delicate arrangement at the hilltop compound, sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Israel has adamantly denied the allegations and accused Palestinian leaders of inciting the violence and spreading lies over the shrines in East Jerusalem. Abbas gave a hard-line speech at the UN last month, saying Israelis desecrate the holy site with their “dirty feet.”
The attacks initially were confined to East Jerusalem and the West Bank — both territories captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 war and claimed by the Palestinians for a future state — but spread this week.
What began as Palestinians throwing rocks and firebombs at passing cars and police has morphed into a deadly shooting and knife attacks.
In what appeared to be the first revenge attack amid the violence, an Israeli man stabbed and wounded four Arabs in the southern Israeli city of Dimona, police said.