Four Palestinians killed by security forces as tensions spike
Jerusalem, Nov 3 (EFE).- Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in separate incidents on Thursday, amid heightened tensions in the region following a spate of deadly attacks in recent weeks.
Two Palestinians were killed and four civilians, including an eight-year-old boy, were injured during an Israeli raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.
One of the deceased has been identified as the leader of the Islamic Jihad-linked Jenin Battalion, according to Israeli media.
Another Palestinian, 42-year-old Dawood Khalil, was shot dead during clashes on Thursday with Israeli soldiers in the town of Beit Duqqu in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.
According to the Israeli military, border police officers opened fire at Khalil after he threw Molotov cocktails at troops.
A fourth Palestinian was killed by Israeli security forces after he allegedly stabbed a police officer in East Jerusalem, officials said Thursday.
The suspect, identified as Bader Amer, 20, entered the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem from Damascus Gate and “pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the officers in his upper body” when he was stopped for questioning, police said.
Two other officers opened fire at the alleged assailant who was declared dead at the scene, police added.
Two members of the security forces were injured during the shootout, according to police.
The Old City is part of East Jerusalem – considered by international law to be part of the occupied West Bank and which Palestinians see as the capital of an independent future state – which was illegally annexed by Israel in 1980.
“The uprising of our people in the West Bank and Jerusalem will continue until the end of the occupation,” Gaza’s Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement, calling the Jerusalem stabbing attack “heroic.”
Thursday’s incidents come after a Palestinian died a day earlier after he rammed a vehicle into an officer and attacked him with an axe, while another Palestinian was killed on Sunday after allegedly ramming a car into a group of Israeli soldiers that left five of them wounded in the West Bank.
Some 141 Palestinians and 23 Israelis have been killed in violent incidents so far this year, the deadliest since 2015.EFE
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