BICOM

Fatah has announced a second “day of rage” on Friday, following Wednesday’s protests against US President Donald Trump’s Jerusalem announcement. Fatah encouraged people to protest on the streets and closed universities and Palestinian Authority (PA) offices to allow civil servants, teaching staff and students to attend protest marches.

The protests were originally planned for Vice President Mike Pence’s visit but the day of rage was also timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly vote later today.

Yesterday afternoon, a thousand Palestinian protestors gathered in Qalandiya north of Jerusalem, where they threw Molotov cocktails and rocks and rolled burning tyres at Israeli Border Police. The security forces responded with riot dispersal techniques including stun grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets. PA sources said that 27 people were injured. There were smaller violent confrontations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as rioting along the Gaza border fence.

Yesterday morning a 17-year-old Palestinian armed with a knife was arrested by Border Police at a checkpoint near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The incident was the fifth time in two months that an armed Palestinian has been arrested at the entrance to the site.

The Shin Bet security agency yesterday published the indictment against a three man Hamas cell that planned to kidnap a soldier or civilian in the West Bank. According to the indictment the original plan was to kidnap Likud MK Yehuda Glick or IDF Arabic-language spokesman Maj. Avichay Adraee. Glick survived an assassination attempt after being shot and seriously wounded in Jerusalem in 2014.

An Israeli military court yesterday extended the custody of a Palestinian girl believed to be 17, who slapped an Israeli soldier. Judge Lidor Drachman said that “despite the provocative and outrageous behaviour of the suspect, given the limited risk she poses in addition to her young age, I was prepared to release her into alternative detention,” however, there was a “significant threat she would compromise the investigation.”