(MENAFN- Gulf Times) The Israeli army shot dead two Palestinians yesterday, one an elderly woman accused of trying to run over soldiers in the occupied West Bank and the other a man who took part in a Gaza Strip protest, hospital officials said.
Separately, three Israelis were wounded in the West Bank, two of them shot near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and a third stabbed outside the Jewish settlement of Beit El, the military said.
Searches are under way for their assailants, it added.
The incidents were the latest in a five-week-old campaign of Palestinian street attacks.
Eleven Israelis have been killed in stabbings, shootings or other attacks during the period. Israeli forces have shot dead at least 71 Palestinians, including 42 who Israel says were carrying out or about to carry out attacks. Many were teenagers.
Near Hebron, a 72-year-old Palestinian woman tried to ram her car into a group of Israeli soldiers, a military spokeswoman said. They opened fire and wounded the woman, who was taken to an Israeli hospital. The hospital said she died en route.
Palestinian medics said the alleged assailant was Sharwat Sharawi, adding that she was driving in pouring rain at the time. They alleged she did not intend to attack the soldiers.
In Gaza, rock-throwing protesters gathered near the border fence with Israel and were fired on by troops on the other side. Medics said a Palestinian was killed. The Israeli army said it opened fire at "instigators" among the Palestinians after they tried to breach the fence and ignored warning shots.
Another Palestinian, from the minority Christian community, was critically hurt by Israeli army fire during a protest in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, medics said.
Near the Israeli settlement of Psagot, close to Ramallah, youths and soldiers clashed in a residential area during a torrential downpour.
The army fired live ammunition in the air, while using rubber bullets and teargas to disperse the crowds.
Security forces also harassed journalists, throwing stun grenades and pointing guns toward them while shouting insults.
A woman who ran to take refuge in her house-one of whose windows had been smashed by what she said was an Israeli teargas grenade-said she had not slept for days.
"My children are living in fear. We hear the bullets flying day and night," she said, declining to give her name.
In Hebron, a further 15 Palestinians were wounded in clashes, one of them seriously, Palestinian medical sources said, as security forces used live ammunition and teargas.
The violence has been the worst since the 2014 Gaza war, with Israeli forces hard-put to anticipate often spontaneous attacks by young Palestinians unaffiliated to militant groups.
"My people, country are victims of an unjust aggression which includes people and places and does not spare old people or children," Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the Unesco General Assembly in Paris.
Israel has accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of stoking the flames with false allegations that it is eroding a decades-old ban on non-Muslim prayer at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque compound, which has seen increased visits by Jews who revere the site as the vestige of their two biblical temples.
"We are taking action against (Palestinian) incitement," Interior Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel's Army Radio, alluding to steps such as the shuttering of a Palestinian radio station in Hebron and the arrests of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs over social media posts deemed to be promoting violence.
"I cannot say that there are signs of total calm, but I hope that it will be possible to control the situation," Shalom said.
Attacks and violent protests throughout October raised fears of a new Palestinian uprising, but violence had waned in recent days.
Most of the recent violence has occurred in Hebron and has mainly involved stabbings.
Hebron has 200,000 Palestinian residents with approximately 500 Israeli settlers living in the centre, protected by an army-patrolled buffer zone. The situation is a constant source of tensions.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry have travelled to the region in recent weeks to urge calm.
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.