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 The violence since October, with almost daily stabbings, shootings
and other attacks by Palestinians targeting Israelis, has been
fueled in part by Palestinian frustration at failed statehood talks
and a dispute over a Jerusalem holy site, with Muslims angered by
perceived Jewish encroachment.
The man shot dead near Hebron on Thursday brought the number of
Palestinians killed since Oct. 1 to at least 144. Israel says 92 of
these were assailants, while most of the others died in clashes with
Israeli security forces.
Palestinian attacks have killed 24 Israelis and a U.S. citizen over
the same period.
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Israel had prevented the violence
from escalating into an armed Palestinian revolt with preemptive
raids and arrests, and he predicted that the grassroots violence
would stop.
 "We are managing to foil plans by the organizations, the terrorist
groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to carry out attacks. If it
were up to them, there would be suicide bombings and gun attacks
here every day," Yaalon told Israel Radio.
"The fact that we are succeeding lends salience to the attempted
stabbing or car-ramming attacks. We will also prevail over this
phenomenon, I say, but this is a process that takes time.
Statistically, we see a waning of this."
Sweden's foreign minister has called for an independent
investigation into whether Israel has carried out extrajudicial
killings of Palestinians, pointing to the high number of attackers,
and suspected attackers, shot dead.
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In response, Israel summoned the Swedish ambassador on Wednesday,
saying it was "enraged" at the comments by Foreign Minister Margot
Wallstrom.
Israeli energy minister Yuval Steinitz went as far as to call
Wallstrom "anti-semitic, whether consciously or not", and Israel's
deputy foreign minister has said Israel will "close its gates" to
officials from Sweden.
(Reporting by Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta, Writing by Ori Lewis;
Editing by Dominic Evans)
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