Knife attacks against Israelis continue
3 Palestinians strike out on streets; 1 killed, 1 wounded by police; other is tackled
JERUSALEM — A Palestinian stabbed and wounded a 70-year-old man in northern Israel before being shot by officers, police said Monday just hours after another Palestinian knifed several people, including an 80-year-old woman, in a stabbing rampage near Tel Aviv, the latest attacks in more than a month of violence.
The attacks came after Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian who they say tried to stab a soldier in the West Bank.
The Palestinian who stabbed the 70-year-old Israeli man as he walked down the street in the northern city of Netanya was shot and wounded by police, police said Monday evening, adding that the Israeli was seriously wounded.
Earlier, Israeli police said, a Palestinian stabbed an 80-yearold woman in the back on a street in Rishon Lezion near Tel Aviv on Monday afternoon and then stabbed a 40-year-old man in the chest before continuing to run down the street and carrying out another attack.
Police spokesman Luba Samri said that, after stabbing the first two Israelis, the Palestinian, a 19-year-old from the West Bank city of Hebron, tried to enter a clothing shop, but a woman in the store slammed a door on him. The Palestinian then went into a cosmetics store and stabbed another man. Bystanders managed to tackle and apprehend the attacker. Police then arrived on motorcycles and detained him.
The military said the episode in the West Bank, which came before the two attacks in Israel, was the third attempted stabbing near the checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel in recent weeks. After soldiers approached two Palestinians at a gas station, one attempted to stab a soldier with a knife before the soldiers shot him, the army said.
Forces treated the wounded Palestinian at the scene, the army said, but he died of his wounds. Palestinian officials said he was 16 years old. The other Palestinian was arrested. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said he was wounded in the violence.
Video later emerged of a
Palestinian smashing a female tour guide over the head with a bottle and then running away outside Jerusalem’s Old City. Police said they later apprehended the Palestinian.
A series of Palestinian attacks linked to tensions over a sensitive Jerusalem holy site began in mid-September. In addition to the near-daily attacks, violent demonstrations have erupted in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, with Palestinian stone-throwers clashing with Israeli troops.
Eleven Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings. Sixty-nine Palestinians have died by Israeli fire, including 43 who Israel says were involved in attacks or attempted attacks.
Israel says the outburst of violence is the result of Palestinian incitement. Palestinians say the violence stems from a lack of hope for gaining independence after years of failed peace efforts.
Also on Monday, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that the European Union will issue new guidelines on Nov. 11 about labeling products from settlements in the West Bank that are sold in European supermarkets.
An Israeli diplomat said Israel has been informed the move could be soon.
“We believe that the guidelines, particularly at this moment, represent a bonus to Palestinian violence and refusal to negotiate and are of a blatant discriminatory nature; the guidelines encourage an atmosphere of boycott against Israel,” he said on condition of anonymity in accordance to protocol.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem and the West Bank, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war from Jordan, as parts of a future independent state. Most of the international community views Israeli settlements in those areas as illegal.
Former President Shimon Peres said in an interview Monday that he worries that if Israel’s leaders do not get serious about pursuing peace with the Palestinians, the country will be in an eternal state of war and risk losing its Jewish majority.
Peres stopped short of directly criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he also made no secret that the values he inherited from Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, were in jeopardy.
“Better to have a Jewish state on part of the land than have the whole land without the Jewish state,” he said. “Israel should implement the twostate solution for her own sake because if we should lose our majority, and today we are almost equal, we cannot remain a Jewish state or a democratic state.
“That’s the main issue, and to my regret they [the government] do the opposite.”
Peres negotiated the first interim peace accord with the Palestinians in 1993, known as the Oslo Accords, which set into motion a partition plan that gave the Palestinians limited self-rule.
Today, senior members of Netanyahu’s government have declared Oslo dead, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas irrelevant and a Palestinian state nothing but a dangerous fantasy.
“The alternative to two states is a continued war, and nobody can maintain a war forever. If you say we should live on our sword, don’t forget that there are other swords as well,” Peres said.