BICOM

The spate of terror attacks on Israelis during the past week appeared to intensify yesterday as seven people were injured in five separate attacks on both sides of the pre-1967 border.

A week ago, an Israeli mother and father in their 30s were gunned down and killed in front of four of their children as they drove in the West Bank and two Israelis were then stabbed to death in Jerusalem’s Old City. Meanwhile, two Palestinian teenagers were killed in clashes with Israeli forces.

Tension has subsequently simmered, but yesterday saw the violence explode once again. While last week’s attacks and low-level violence during the past month occurred almost exclusively in the West Bank and Jerusalem, two attacks yesterday were carried out within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. An Israeli man in his 20s suffered superficial stab wounds outside a shopping centre in the central city of Petach Tikva after a 25-year-old Palestinian from near Hebron alighted a bus and attacked him. Meanwhile, in the southern city of Kiryat Gat, a Palestinian man attacked an IDF soldier with a knife and briefly stole his weapon before being shot dead by police.

Earlier yesterday morning, an Israeli woman was lightly injured as she commuted from the West Bank near Bethlehem to Jerusalem, when her car was attacked by a Palestinian mob hurling rocks at her vehicle from close range. In Jerusalem itself, an 18-year-old Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli man in his 30s in the Old City. However, the man was able to shoot the assailant who was seriously wounded. The attack happened just hours after Israeli authorities lifted temporary restrictions on Palestinians entering the Old City.

Yesterday evening, two Israelis were lightly wounded after a 30-year-old Palestinian man rammed his vehicle into a military checkpoint near Ma’aleh Adumim in the West Bank. Border Police fired shots at the vehicle and apprehended the driver. In other incidents, soldiers prevented a stabbing in Jerusalem’s Abu Tor neighbourhood and rocks were thrown in Jaffa.