Palestinians clash with Israeli security in West Bank

Israeli security forces and Palestinian youths clashed near the West Bank settlement of Beit El on Sunday (November 29), after two Palestinians stabbed people in Jerusalem in the latest such attacks in a two-month wave of violence.

Tens of Palestinian youths gathered at a children’s playground near the settlement where they threw stones at Israeli security forces and lit up fire to tyres.

Israeli soldiers and border policemen fired stun and smoke grenades towards demonstrators.

Palestinian paramedics were seen at the site, evacuating wounded into an ambulance. The Israeli army spokesperson unit said it was checking the report.

Earlier on Sunday, near a main gate of Jerusalem’s walled Old City, a Palestinian pulled out a knife and stabbed a border policeman in the neck, moderately wounding him, before being shot by officers, a police spokesman said.

Also on Sunday, an attacker stabbed and lightly wounded a woman in a Jerusalem bus station, police said. The attacker who escaped the scene was later apprehended, police spokesperson added.

Almost daily Palestinian stabbings, car rammings and shootings have killed 19 Israelis and one U.S. citizen since Oct. 1.

Israeli forces have killed 94 Palestinians, many of whom were carrying out assaults and others in clashes with police and troops. Many of those killed have been teenagers.

Palestinian allegations that Israel is trying to alter the religious status quo at a Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where al-Aqsa mosque stands, and to Jews as the Temple Mount, have partly fueled the violence.

Non-Muslim prayer is banned around al-Aqsa and Israel has said it will not change that. But more visits in recent years by Jewish religious activists and ultra-nationalist Israeli politicians to the complex, where two biblical temples once stood, have done little to convince Palestinians.