Palestinian
wielding knife shot dead: Israeli police
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[October 31, 2015]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli
security forces shot and killed a Palestinian who ran at them with a
knife in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, police said, as a
month-long wave of violence showed no signs of abating.
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An Israeli police spokeswoman said that at a checkpoint in the
northern West Bank a Palestinian holding a knife ran toward a
security officer who called on him to stop.
"When he did not heed those calls the security man shot toward him
in order to neutralize him and as a result the terrorist was
killed," spokeswoman Luba Samri said. Palestinian medical officials
said he was 18-years-old.
This month's surge in violence, the worst since the 2014 Gaza war,
arose in part from religious and political tensions over the al-Aqsa
mosque compound in Jerusalem's walled Old City that is sacred to
both Muslims and Jews.
A growing number of visits by religious Jews to the al-Aqsa plaza -
Islam's holiest site outside Saudi Arabia and revered in Judaism as
the location of two destroyed biblical temples - have stirred
Palestinian allegations that Israel is violating a "status quo"
under which non-Muslim prayer there is banned.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Oct/31/images/ads/current/LPL_small%201.gif) Israel says such allegations are false and that their voicing by
Palestinian officials and circulation in Arab social media has been
inciting the violence.
Since the latest unrest began on Oct. 1, at least 65 Palestinians
have been shot dead by Israelis. Of those, 38 were assailants armed
mainly with knives, Israel said, while others were shot during
violent anti-Israel protests. Many were teens.
Eleven Israelis have been killed in stabbings and shootings
Many Palestinians are also frustrated by the failure of numerous
rounds of peace talks to secure them an independent state in the
West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel
captured in the 1967 Middle East War.
On Friday the Palestinian Health Ministry said an eight-month-old
baby had died in the West Bank as result of inhaling tear gas fired
by the Israeli military in the area. Hospital officials told Reuters
the infant had a prior health condition and that it was unclear what
had caused his death.
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An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army was looking into the
incident.
Palestinians say Israeli police and soldiers are using excessive
force, while Israel says lethal force is justified against deadly
threats.
On Saturday Israeli police said it had looked into footage which has
surfaced on social media, appearing to show a paramilitary police
officer shooting a wounded Palestinian lying on the ground, after he
had carried out a stabbing attack in the West Bank city of Hebron on
Thursday. Reuters was unable to independently verify the video.
A police statement said the Palestinian had just stabbed a soldier
and that the officer seen in the footage told him not to move. When
he appeared to be moving toward him, the officer concluded the man
could still be a threat, possibly strapping an explosive device or
carrying another weapon and shot him again.
In a separate incident, an Israeli paramilitary police officer was
suspended from duty, Israeli Border Police said, after he had driven
through a West Bank refugee camp and over loudspeakers said: "If you
keep throwing stones at us we will shoot gas at you until you die."
(Reporting by Ali Sawafta and Maayan Lubell; Writing by Maayan
Lubell; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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