Two Palestinians killed
JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH: At least two Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank and 16 Israelis were hurt yesterday in a surge of violence that erupted amid Palestinian anger at US President Donald Trump’s peace plan.
In Jerusalem, an Arab citizen of Israel was killed after he shot and slightly wounded an Israeli paramilitary border policeman at an entrance to the walled Old City, Israeli authorities said, calling the attack politically motivated.
The peace proposal announced on January 28 would give Israel most of what it has sought during decades of conflict, including the disputed holy city of Jerusalem and nearly all the occupied land on which it has built settlements.
With violence on the rise, the Israeli military said it was sending reinforcements to the West Bank, where Israeli troops in Jenin shot dead a 19yearold man during clashes. Palestinians said he had thrown rocks at soldiers who came to demolish the home of a Palestinian involved in the 2018 killing of a Jewish settler.
In a separate incident in Jenin, a Palestinian officer in the police station was killed by what Palestinian authorities said was Israeli gunfire. Israeli officials did not comment, and Israeli media said he was shot by troops by mistake.
In a scene reminiscent of a wave of Palestinian street attacks in 2015, a car ran down Israeli soldiers on a Jerusalem footpath, injuring at least 14 of them, Israeli police said.
The assailant fled and was arrested later in the day, the Israeli military said. Israel’s YNet news website identified him as a 25yearold Palestinian.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Israel for the deaths, linking them to what Trump has billed as the ‘‘deal of the century’’.
Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner, the face of the US plan, said Abbas bore some responsibility for the surge in violence.
‘‘He calls for days of rage in response and he said that before he even saw the plan,’’ Kushner said after briefing the UN Security Council on the plan’s details.
Kushner added that he met Abbas personally four times as he was crafting the proposal, but ‘‘they chose not to meet with us again’’.
Visiting Israeli security forces in the West Bank after yesterday’s incidents, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also accused Abbas of inciting violence.
‘‘We will do everything necessary to protect our security, to define our borders and to ensure our future,’’ he said. ‘‘We will do it with you or without you.’’
The IsraelGaza border has also been shaken by several days of violence.
Palestinians have launched mortar fire, rockets and balloonborne explosives into Israel, causing panic but no serious casualties. Israel has carried out nightly airstrikes against sites belonging to Gaza’s ruling Hamas Islamists. — Reuters