Calm returns to East Jerusalem after flareup of violence
Jerusalem, Oct 13 (EFE).- Calm returned to the occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday after Israel deployed border police officers across the area.
The measure came after clashes erupted between Israeli police and Palestinians on Wednesday in one of the worst breakouts of violence this year.
Border Police Commander Deputy Commissioner Amir Cohen said that officers would keep acting against violence to enforce public safety, adding that forces are trained to deal with this kind of incidents with “professionalism.”
Nine Palestinians were detained early on Thursday for their alleged involvement in violent acts, in addition to 23 others taken into custody the day before, according to a police spokesman.
Clashes were particularly violent in the neighborhood of Shuafat, where a refugee camp is located. On Saturday, an Israeli soldier was killed and another was seriously wounded after a shooting attack at a military checkpoint there.
Since then, the Israeli police have partially closed the refugee camp’s entry and exit points, while the manhunt for those responsible for the incident was underway.
The closure of the area and the increased police presence have angered Palestinians, who staged protests that led to fierce clashes in several parts of the city, occupied by Israel in 1967 and annexed in 1980.
The East Jerusalem unrest comes as some 116 Palestinians were killed in violent incidents or armed clashes with Israeli security forces or settlers in the West Bank in 2022, which is already the most violent year in the region since the so-called Knife Intifada of 2015. EFE
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