Unrest spreads after more killings in Israel

An Israeli soldier and a woman have been killed, and two others injured in separate stabbing incidents in Tel Aviv and the occupied West Bank, Israeli police have said.

Monday’s incidents came amid a wave of unrest in parts of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories following the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli soldiers last Wednesday.

The violence began in Tel Aviv where a Palestinian teenager from the northern West Bank stabbed a 20-year-old soldier, leaving him in critical condition. The soldier died of his wounds in hospital late on Monday night.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, said officers had arrested the Tel Aviv attacker, who stabbed the soldier several times, adding that he was from the town of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

“He is currently under interrogation,” Rosenfeld said.

In the second attack, a Palestinian man stabbed three Israelis at the entrance of the Alon Shvut settlement in the West Bank on Monday evening, Israeli police said, adding that the attacker was then shot by the guard.

A 25-year-old Israeli woman died in the incident and the other two victims have been hospitalised for minor injuries.

There was no immediate reaction from the Palestinians. 

Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Jerusalem, said: “One of the guards stationed at the entrance shot the attacker. There are conflicting reports whether the Palestinian attacker was killed or is being treated in hospital.”

“Settlements are gated communities with armed guards and high walls with high protection,” our correspondent said, referring to residential areas in the southern West Bank where Israelis live.

The Israeli military said it sent reinforcements to the West Bank, following what it called “new security assessments”. 

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Speaking in New York, Ron Prosor, the permanent representative of Israel to the UN, condemned what he called the terrorist attacks on Israelis.

“This [UN] institution has not uttered a word denouncing these incidents,” he said.

He also criticised European countries for their inaction over the attacks.

Prosor blamed the Palestinian Authority (PA) for “adding fuel to the fire by spreading hatred against Israel”.

“These attacks are the result of years of anti-Israeli indoctrination,” he said, condemning the PA for not denouncing the incidents.

The European Union strongly condemned the attacks, with the office of EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini “extremely worried” by the current situation and warning it could further deteriorate “in the absence of political perspective”. 

‘They will not succeed’

Speaking in parliament after the Tel Aviv incident, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said: “Terror … is being directed at all parts of the country for a simple reason: The terrorists, the inciters, want to drive us from everywhere.

“As far as they are concerned, we should not be in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or anywhere. I can promise you one thing: They will not succeed. We will continue to fight terror… and we will defeat it together.”

Netanyahu was expected to convene a security consultation meeting with the Israeli defence minister and interior minister later on Monday.  

Ongoing unrest has been triggered by Muslim fears of Jewish encroachment at the sacred site where the Al-Aqsa mosque stands, a hilltop plateau known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The fatal shooting of an Israeli Arab by a policeman on Saturday in the Israeli Arab town of Kfar Kana gave a new impetus to the tensions, after the release of a video that appeared to show the man backing away from police when he was shot.

Since Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, Jewish worshippers have been allowed to visit, but not pray, at Haram al-Sharif.

On Saturday, a Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians in central Jerusalem, killing two Israelis. Police shot the driver dead.