Gaza
A spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence on Thursday left three Arabs killed and a dozen Israeli troops wounded in a rash of attacks and clashes a week after the Trump administration released its long-anticipated Mideast plan.
The new spate of attacks places the plan which was already considered a long-shot because it greatly favours Israel and was rejected outright by the Palestinians on even shakier ground, and sparked fears of a return to deadly rounds of violence of the past. The plan has triggered calls by Israeli nationalists for Israel to annex parts of the West Bank. But they erupted more fiercely on Thursday, in the deadliest day of violence in months. The Trump plan “created this environment of tension and escalation”, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA.
Early in the day, a Palestinian motorist slammed his car into a group of Israeli soldiers, wounding 12 before fleeing the scene, the Israeli military said. In the West Bank, two Palestinians died after clashes broke out with Israeli troops, according to Palestinian hospital officials.
And later, Israeli police said they shot and killed an Arab citizen of Israel who opened fire at forces in Jerusalem’s Old City, lightly wounding an officer. Palestinian hospital officials said a 19-year-old was killed in clashes in the West Bank city of Jenin. Six others were wounded in the confrontation. In a separate incident also in Jenin, a member of the Palestinian security forces who was shot by Israeli troops later died. That violence came just hours after Israeli forces shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian during clashes with demonstrators elsewhere in the West Bank on Wednesday. — AFP
