A 13-year-old boy died Sunday after being shot by a rubber-coated bullet in clashes in the West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported.
The Palestinian death toll from the weekend’s violence now stands at 10, as the days of violence continued with stabbings, shootings and an explosion.
One day earlier, the gates of Jerusalem’s Old City, sacred to three world religions, became the latest flashpoint for growing violence as Israeli police killed two Palestinians who stabbed officers and others Saturday, authorities said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered police reinforcements in Jerusalem, according to a statement from his office.
About 1,300 reserve border police officers have been mobilized here and throughout the country. The additional force will continue as necessary as “a primary preventive and deterrent measure,” the statement said.
In the violence outside the Old City walls, police fatally shot both Palestinian assailants in separate incidents, Israeli authorities said.
Saturday evening, the Israeli air force targeted two Hamas weapon manufacturing facilities in northern Gaza in response to a rocket fired into southern Israel.
Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted the rocket with no injuries or damage reported, according to the Israel Defense Forces spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner. He said this was the second rocket attack in the past two days.
House collapse kills two
According to the Gaza City Fire Department, as a result of the blasts in Gaza City, a house collapsed resulting in the deaths of a 3-year-old child and a 35-year-old woman who was five months pregnant. The Gaza City Ambulance Service said three others were wounded and taken to the hospital.
And on Sunday morning, an Israeli policeman was injured and a 31-year-old Palestinian woman severely burned. There were conflicting reports as to exactly what happened.
The woman was pulled over near a West Bank checkpoint after she was spotted driving suspiciously at about 7 a.m., according to the Israeli Security Agency, saying that she deliberately ignited a gas canister as the officer was speaking to her.
But a bus driver and eyewitness to the incident told CNN that there appeared to be a malfunction in the woman’s car and that there were smoke and fire coming from the back seat area of it after she was stopped by the officer. The witness said he didn’t see a gas canister, nor hear an explosion.
Violence has exploded throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories in the wake of recent restrictions by the Israeli government on the site that Jews call the Temple Mount. Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary, which includes the al-Aqsa Mosque.
Almost a year ago, when Israel temporarily closed the site for the first time in a more than a decade, Palestinians became enraged, and a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called it a “declaration of war.” The closure, done for security reasons, lasted a day.
Police kill 16-year-old after alleged stabbing
The week’s escalating bloodshed included the outskirts of the Old City’s Damascus Gate, where a 16-year-old Palestinian boy stabbed two Israelis about 150 yards from the entrance Saturday, police said.
The two victims, 62 and 65, were lightly injured, and police killed the attacker after he allegedly ran toward officers with the knife, authorities said. The assailant was identified as Ishak Badran, a Palestinian from Jerusalem, police said.k
A second knife attack also occurred near the Damascus Gate when a young Palestinian man stabbed two Israeli police officers, one of them in the neck, after police checked his identification, Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
Policemen from a nearby unit arrived on the scene and fired at the attacker, but two Israeli officers were wounded in the gunfire, Samri said. A total of three policemen were taken to hospital, with one in serious condition, she said.
The attacker was killed when police opened fire.
In total, seven Palestinians died Saturday: four in Jerusalem and the West Bank, including the knife-wielding attackers, and three more in Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The toll by midday Sunday was two dead in Gaza, and one in the West Bank.
Hundreds more Palestinians were injured in clashes in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the Red Crescent added.
The aid group said Israeli forces fired tear gas into an ambulance in Bethlehem, injuring its crew, and struck medical crews in Gaza with tear gas.
‘We will resist’
Saturday’s death toll included two Palestinian boys, ages 14 and 15, who were killed in clashes in Gaza, and a Palestinian man in his 20s who was killed in overnight clashes in the Shufat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.
In the West Bank, central Hebron burned with thick smoke from flaming tires as young Palestinian men clashed with Israeli police and soldiers.
“Israelis only know the language of violence, so we will resist,” one masked Palestinian youth told CNN.
Another youth chimed in: “We’ve tried negotiations and it didn’t work. So now we will fight.”
Smaller clashes also unfolded in Bethlehem, where tear gas permeated the air.
