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At least 40
Palestinians and seven Israelis have died in the violence, which
was in part triggered by Palestinians' anger over what they see
as increased Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque
compound.
Israeli border police had stopped to question a 16-year-old
Palestinian walking in "a suspicious manner" through a
neighborhood around East Jerusalem, a police spokesman said. The
teenager drew a knife and tried to stab the officers, who shot
him dead, the spokesman said.
A second shooting occurred near a Jewish settlement in the West
Bank city of Hebron. The Israeli military said a Palestinian
attempted to stab an Israeli civilian, who was carrying a gun
and then shot and killed the attacker.
A Palestinian high schooler, who witnessed the Hebron shooting,
said it happened when Jewish settlers attacked an unarmed
Palestinian, according the girl's father who spoke with Reuters.
Also in Hebron, a female Palestinian stabbed an Israeli border
policewoman, cutting her hand, a police spokesman said. The
policewoman managed to shoot the attacker, he said.
More than 40 Palestinians have been killed in the last two
weeks, including knife-wielding assailants and protesters shot
by Israeli forces during rock-throwing confrontations. Seven
Israelis have died in random attacks in the street or on buses.
Israel says it is keeping the status quo at the holy compound,
which is also revered by Jews as the location of two destroyed
biblical Jewish temples.
Peace talks collapsed in 2014 over Israeli settlement-building
in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians
seek for a state, and after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
angered Israel by reaching a unity deal with the Islamist group
Hamas in Gaza.
The last major confrontation was the Gaza conflict between
Israel and Hamas in 2014, which left large sections of Gaza
destroyed. Around 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians,
and 73 Israelis, almost all soldiers, were killed.
The United States has stepped up efforts to try to restore calm
to the region. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke by phone with
both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas to
discuss ways to end the violence.
Kerry and Netanyahu will meet next week in Germany.
(Reporting by Ali Sawafta, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ari Rabinovitch;
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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