Tel Aviv - Violence gripped parts of Jerusalem and the West
Bank on Thursday, leaving several Palestinians dead and 12 Israeli
soldiers and a police officer injured in Palestinian attacks.
Conflict in the region seems to have spiked in the days since the US
unveiled its Middle East plan last week.
Israel has conducted nearly daily strikes on Hamas targets in the
Gaza Strip in response to rocket, mortar and incendiary balloon
attacks in the days since Trump's announcement.
A 17-year-old teenager was killed in the West Bank city of Hebron on
Wednesday during clashes with Israeli soldiers, becoming the first
protester killed since the US unveiled the plan. In response, the
militant Hamas movement called for an escalation in the West Bank.
The Israeli army said that soldiers had seen a petrol bomb being
thrown at them and responded to the assailant with gunfire.
Early Thursday, a 19-year-old was killed and seven other Palestinians
were injured in clashes in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
A Palestinian man, a police officer, later succumbed to wounds
sustained in the clashes in Jenin, according to Palestinian sources.
Israeli police officers inspect the scene of an attack in Jerusalem. A Palestinian motorist slammed his car into a group of soldiers, wounding more than a dozen before fleeing the scene, Israeli police said. Picture: Mahmoud Illean/AP
According to the Israeli army, soldiers had entered Jenin to destroy
the home of a Palestinian attacker. There were sizeable riots and
soldiers had killed a sniper, the army said.
In Jerusalem early Thursday morning, a vehicle-ramming attack near a
bus station left 12 Israeli soldiers injured, one of them seriously.
Police are searching for the driver, who fled the scene.
The army spoke of a terrorist attack in which the driver had targeted
soldiers.
Palestinian sources said that the army had seized a car believed to
be the attacker's in Beit Jala, a Palestinian town 10 kilometres
south of Jerusalem, and that soldiers were searching homes there.
Israel's Magen David Adom emergency services said that a 20-year-old
was in serious condition after the incident on David Remez Street at
around 1:45 am (2345 GMT Wednesday) and was taken to hospital.
In Jerusalem's Old City, a Palestinian man was killed on Thursday
after a shooting at an Israeli border police officer near the Temple
Mount. The officer received a slight hand injury.
Areas of the Old City have been closed down in light of the attack.
Israeli police officers inspect the scene of an attack in Jerusalem by a Palestinian motorist. Picture: Mahmoud Illean/AP
The Israeli army said that another soldier was slightly injured in a
shooting near the Dolev settlement in the West Bank. It added that
efforts are under way to find the perpetrator of the attack.
US President Donald Trump unveiled his Middle East plan last week,
which he said would end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The plan foresees Israeli control over the West Bank, Jordan Valley
and key holy sites in Jerusalem. Palestinians have outright rejected
the plan, fearing that it will recognize Israeli claims to parts of
the West Bank, which they want for their future state of Palestine.
After calls by the Palestinian leadership for protests, there were
isolated strikes and demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blamed the
"dangerous Israeli escalation" in violence on Thursday on Trump's
plan. Any plan that does not aim for "just and comprehensive peace
will inevitably lead to this escalation that we are witnessing
today," said the spokesman, according to the Wafa news agency.
However, an Israeli army spokesman did not connect the events, saying
only that there has been a rise in the intensity of attacks on the
Israel Defence Forces in the last few days.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War, and it is
considered occupied territory by most of the international community.