Fresh violence flares in Hebron

Fresh violence erupted Thursday in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron, where an Israeli border guard was lightly wounded in one of two knife attacks, and the Palestinian assailants shot dead.

While a spate of protests and attacks in Jerusalem has eased, tensions have concentrated in Hebron, where near-daily clashes pit youths against soldiers enforcing the decades-long occupation of the West Bank.

Many have suggested the latest wave of resistance could be the start of a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, as frustration boils over with peace talks stalled and no political solution on the horizon for the six-decade-old conflict.

Palestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah said: "It is time for the international community to take a stand... that would lead to a lasting peace between Palestine and Israel."

"We are against any killings, and we condemn any killings against any civilians," he said on a visit to The Hague.

He added that "the Israeli occupation is the root cause of the instability in the region."

Hamdallah was the first Palestinian leader to clearly condemn recent attacks on civilians, although many of the knifings have targeted Israeli soldiers and police.

Nine Israelis have bene killed and dozens wounded in the wave of attacks that began in early October over the status of the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem and has seen tensions erupt across the Palestinian territories.

In the West Bank, clashes injured two at a checkpoint in Ramallah, Palestinian medical sources said. There was also fighting in Bethlehem.

Four stone-throwing youths were hurt in Hebron when dozens of them clashed with security forces.

Hebron, a stronghold of the Islamist movement Hamas and a powder keg in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is a city where 500 Israeli settlers live among Palestinians behind barbed-wire, observation towers and under army protection.

Seven Palestinians who stabbed, or attempted to stab, Israeli soldiers there have been shot dead in recent days.

In one attack, a Palestinian stabbed and lightly wounded a border guard near a shrine in Hebron known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque.

The attacker, 23-year-old Mahdi al-Mohtaseb, was shot dead.

Separately, Palestinian Faruq Sider, 19, allegedly tried to stab a  soldier and was also shot dead, according to the police and army.

Both incidents were followed by clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli security forces.

AFP video footage showed Sider lying motionless on the ground, blood streaming onto the rain-soaked road as a settler took a photo.

- Suicide bid staged as attack -

Amnesty International, which this week accused Israeli forces of "using lethal force against anyone they perceive as posing a threat, without ensuring that the threat is real", also said several shot attackers had not been given medical assistance.

The death of the attackers takes the number of Palestinians killed in the recent unrest to 62. Many of those killed have been shot in anti-Israeli protests.

One Israeli Arab attacker has also been shot dead.

Another Israeli Arab -- Palestinians who became citizens of Israel after the Jewish state was formed in 1948 -- was found to have staged an attack bid in which she was shot and wounded, in a suicide attempt.

Local media had reported that Esraa Abed, 29,  was troubled after a divorce and losing custody of her child, and had previously attempted suicide.

"Taking into account the psychological state of the accused and her previous suicide attempts, it has been established that she tried to commit suicide again... by pretending to want to carry out an attack to get security forces to shoot at her," the justice ministry said.

Anger has also surged in Hebron over Israel's policy of withholding the bodies of dead assailants, one of a series of measures to try to dissuade attacks on Jews.

Another measures has been to speed up the practice of razing the family homes of alleged attackers.

The Supreme court Thursday examined Thursday appeals over plans to destroy six homes. It is set to rule Monday.
Source: AFP