Israel and the Palestinian territories experienced new deadly violence on Sunday, May 8, shortly after the announcement by the Jewish state of the arrest of two Palestinians suspected of having killed three Israelis on Thursday.
A Palestinian who tried to enter Israel through the separation barrier from the West Bank was killed by the Israeli army, the army and a hospital said. In a statement, the army said it had “identified a [personne] trying to pass the security barrier (…) near Tulkarem ». Soldiers gave him “fired on it according to the procedures”. A spokesperson for the Israeli Sheba hospital then explained to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the Palestinian had died of his injuries.
Also in the evening, a man stabbed an Israeli policeman near the Old City of Jerusalem, before being shot and wounded by Israeli forces, Israeli police and medics reported. The policeman was taken to hospital.
Finally, a Palestinian armed with a knife entered an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, where a resident shot him, the Israeli army announced. “A terrorist armed with a knife entered the colony [de Tekoa, située entre Jérusalem et Bethléem]and a civilian who tried to stop him shot him”, the army said. The Palestinian health ministry said the 17-year-old assailant was dead.
Arrest of two suspects
This violence occurs after the announcement by the police of the arrest of “two terrorists who murdered three Israeli civilians in the attack” conducted Thursday in the city of Elad, located near the metropolis of Tel Aviv.
The police had launched a vast manhunt to find two Palestinians aged 19 and 20, from the village of Roummaneh in the Jenin region of the West Bank. According to witnesses, the assailants jumped out of a car and attacked passers-by with axes before fleeing in the vehicle. Three Israelis were killed and four injured, one of whom is in critical condition.
The two suspects in Thursday’s attack were found near the town of Elad. They surrendered and made confessions, an Israeli military official said Sunday. They had entered Israel through a “porous” separation barrier from the West Bank hours before the attack, added the military source, who called their infiltration a » failure « for the Israeli army.
The attack in Elad on Thursday took place on the day of the 74and anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, which for the Palestinians represents a nakba ( » disaster « , in Arabic) and is synonymous with exodus for hundreds of thousands of them. Hamas – the Islamist movement that controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza under Israeli blockade – and Islamic Jihad welcomed an attack « heroic »claiming that it was a consequence of the tensions around the esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the Holy City occupied by Israel.
Challenging the status quo
In recent weeks, clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians have left some 300 injured, mainly on the esplanade of the Mosques. This site, the third place of Islam, houses the Al-Aqsa mosque. Thursday, after the return of Jewish worshipers to the esplanade, also considered the holiest place in Judaism under its name of Temple Mount, clashes broke out between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police.
Under an unspoken status quo, non-Muslims can go to the esplanade but not pray there. A growing number of Jews go there, and the fact that some of them pray there raises fears that this status quo will be challenged among many Muslims, even though Israel has repeatedly wanted to maintain it.
In total, since March 22, 18 people have been killed in anti-Israeli attacks in Israel and the West Bank, carried out by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. In the wake of the first attacks, Israeli forces carried out operations in the West Bank, particularly in the Jenin region where the attackers originated. 29 Palestinians, including attackers, have since been killed.