Smoke over Gaza City after Israeli air strikes, February 13, 2023 (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP)
An Israeli policeman died and a Jewish teenager was injured in two knife attacks carried out by two Palestinian teenagers in east Jerusalem on Monday, according to Israeli police.
The new attacks come amid fears of an uncontrollable outpouring of violence as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has escalated since the beginning of the year, with one Palestinian killed after night-time clashes in Gaza and the West Bank.
At the end of the afternoon, an Israeli police officer was injured during a routine check on a bus at the entrance to the Palestinian refugee camp of Shuafat, Israeli police said. The police officer was stabbed by a teenager and hit by a bullet fired by a civilian in the direction of the attacker, but missed its target.
The officer, a 22-year-old Bedouin man, succumbed to his injuries, police said.
The 13-year-old boy from Chouafat was arrested. The police announced that they arrested three family members and shot a suspect car during an operation in Chouafat, injuring the driver.
A gas station damaged by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on February 13, 2023 (Mohammed ABED / AFP)
Earlier, a 17-year-old Jewish boy was slightly injured in a knife attack by a 14-year-old Palestinian in Jerusalem’s Old City, according to police sources. The attacker, also from Shuafat, in the eastern part of Jerusalem occupied and annexed by Israel, was arrested.
The Israeli army claimed to be acting “in response” to a missile fired from Gaza Saturday night and destroyed by Israeli anti-aircraft defenses, announcing that during the night it “hit an underground complex containing raw materials for manufacturing have rockets belonging to Hamas, the ruling Palestinian Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip.
“Destinations in Tel Aviv”
According to the Hamas Interior Ministry in Gaza, the night strikes caused “considerable damage to four houses, a wedding hall and a gas station” near the military camp in southwest Gaza City that was attacked by Israeli rockets. No casualties were reported.
The buildings of a wedding hall destroyed after Israeli airstrikes on February 13, 2023 in Gaza (MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)
Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas official, warned that further Israeli attacks would draw a response from his movement’s armed wing, whose rockets, he told AFP, could hit “targets in Tel Aviv and beyond.” .
The Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal region, and its 2.3 million people have been under an Israeli blockade since Hamas took power in 2007.
In Nablus, a city in the north of the occupied West Bank where the army has been stepping up so-called “anti-terrorist” night operations in search of “suspects” for almost a year, Israeli forces carried out a new raid overnight from Sunday to Monday.
A 21-year-old Palestinian man was killed in an exchange of gunfire during the raid, in which soldiers arrested five people.
Relatives watch over the remains of Palestinian Amir Ihab Boustami, who was killed in an Israeli army raid in Nablus in the occupied West Bank on February 13, 2023 (JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP)
Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 47 Palestinians (including members of armed groups and civilians, including minors), nine civilians (including three minors), as well as an Israeli police officer and a Ukrainian, according to an AFP tally of Israeli officials and Palestinian sources.
“Punish Israel”
In a move likely to escalate tensions, Israel’s security cabinet announced on Sunday that it would legalize nine Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. The cabinet unveiled the measure in response to a series of Palestinian attacks in east Jerusalem, including one that killed three people on Friday.
These settlements were previously illegal under Israeli law as they were built without government consent, but to the UN any Jewish settlement venture in the West Bank is illegal under international law.
The security cabinet also said it intends to announce a new round of housing for settlers in the West Bank.
Smoke over Gaza City after Israeli air strikes, February 13, 2023 (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday he was “deeply concerned” by the two decisions and condemned “such unilateral actions that are increasing tensions and undermining efforts to negotiate a two-state solution.”
“It is time for the world to punish Israel for its disregard for United Nations resolutions,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. More than 475,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), where 2.8 million Palestinians live.
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