Violence escalates as Palestinian militants 'fire rocket into Israel'

Violence has continued to escalate between Palestinian militants and the Israeli military after reports that a rocket was fired from the Gaza strip, and clashes broke out following the death of a young Palestinian man in a Jerusalem refugee camp.

The missile was launched into southern Israel on Saturday, the Israeli military said, after a week of escalating violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Sirens were triggered in Israeli communities near the border but the rocket landed in open countryside and no one was hurt, according to a statement.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian man, Ahmad Salah, 24, was shot dead in Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem overnight on Friday. Clashes broke out late in the evening with Israeli forces near a military checkpoint at the camp entrance.

A spokesman for the Fatah movement in the camp, Thaer al-Fasfous, told Ma’an news website that fierce clashes had broken out between Palestinians in the camp and Israeli forces “who had fired live ammunition directly at youth from close range”.

Two Jewish men were lightly wounded in another stabbing attack in east Jerusalem, near Damascus Gate, on Saturday morning, Israeli police reported. Police shot and killed the alleged attacker at the scene, a 16-year-old Palestinian youth.

Emergency workers provided medical treatment to a 62-year-old man in a moderate condition and a 65-year-old man with light injuries at the site of the attack. Both men were taken to hospital in Jerusalem for further treatment.

According to Israeli police, clashes broke out between police and a group of Palestinians after the stabbing attack and the shooting of the Palestinian youth. Police dispersed the crowd using teargas.

Overnight, another Palestinian from Gaza died of injuries he sustained during clashes with Israeli troops east of Gaza City and Khan Yunis along the border with Israel, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in the clashes to seven. The dead were among a group throwing stones and taking part in a rally, hospital officials in Gaza said.

The rally had been called in support of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, and followed a spate of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and reprisals by Jews against Arabs.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said around 200 Palestinians massed at the border fence in northern Gaza, throwing rocks and rolling burning tyres toward troops stationed on the other side.

Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, declared the unrest an intifada and urged further clashes. In a sermon for Friday prayers at a mosque in Gaza City, he said: “We are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada. It is the only path that will lead to liberation. Gaza will fulfil its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation.”

A fresh wave of stabbings also hit Israel and the West Bank. In the southern Israeli city of Dimona, a Jewish attacker stabbed two Palestinians and two Arab Israelis and later told police: “All Arabs are terrorists.”

A Palestinian stabbed a policeman near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, and was shot dead by the policeman, who was lightly wounded. A 16-year-old Israeli was lightly wounded in a stabbing in Jerusalem and an 18-year-old Palestinian suspect was arrested.

A Palestinian woman was shot after a stabbing attempt in the northern Israeli town of Afula. Video of the incident at a bus station showed the woman surrounded by police and security guards, apparently raising her hands before being shot multiple times.

Friday’s clash was the deadliest in Gaza since the summer 2014 war with Israel. Both the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have called for calm, and Palestinian police continue to coordinate with Israeli security forces to try to restore order, but there are few signs of the tension and violence dying down.

The Obama administration has condemned the Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers and appealed for calm on all sides. In Washington, US state department spokesman John Kirby referred to the Palestinian attacks on Israelis as “acts of terror”.

Source: theguardian.com