Escalation in violence rocks Jerusalem and West Bank after Trump’s Middle East plan
JERUSALEM and the occupied West Bank were rocked by several incidents of violence yesterday, raising fears that Donald Trump’s controversial Middle East plan could spark fresh turmoil between Israelis and Palestinians.
An Arab-israeli gunman shot and wounded an Israeli police officer in Jerusalem’s Old City yesterday morning just hours after a suspected car-ramming attack wounded a dozen Israeli soldiers in another part of the city. In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian security officer and a teenager during a night raid into the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank late on Wednesday. Israel’s military said it had come under sniper fire.
Israeli warplanes also struck Hamas targets in Gaza in response to what the military said was several days of mortar shells and explosive balloons fired from the Strip.
The Israeli military said it was not clear if the uptick in conflict was connected to the White House plan, but said it was seeing “a rise in the intensity of violence” in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in recent days.
Hamas had called “escalating confrontations” with Israel earlier on Wednesday in response to Mr Trump’s plan, which Palestinians have denounced as heavily biased in favour of Israel.
At around noon yesterday an Arabisraeli man from the northern city of Haifa opened fire on Israeli police in Jerusalem. The gunman was killed and a police officer was wounded.
A suspected Palestinian driver slammed a car into a group of new Israeli recruits at around 2am. The attacker fled, and Israeli forces have launched a large-scale manhunt.
Israeli troops also killed a Palestinian policeman during a confrontation in Jenin, in a rare instance of the security forces, which cooperate closely in the West Bank, firing upon each other.
An Israeli soldier was reportedly wounded in a drive-by shooting yesterday afternoon.
The Palestinian Authority said the violence was a result of the plan unveiled by Mr Trump. “We have repeatedly warned that any deal which does not meet the rights of our people and does not aim for a just and comprehensive peace will inevitably lead to the escalation we are witnessing today,” said a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Hamas also hailed the violence as “revolutions raging in the West Bank cities and in Jerusalem”.