An Israeli soldier points his gun at a Palestinian youth asked to strip down as he stands at a military checkpoint along the controversial 'separation barrier' built by Israel at the entrance of the holy town of Bethlehem. Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank have similar Israeli checkpoints controlling the movement of the Palestinian citizens in and out of their towns and cities.
Published Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Updated at 1:00pm: A 16-year-old Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier to death on a bus on Wednesday in an attack apparently motivated by the jailing of his relatives in Israel, police said.
The death came as Israel backtracked on an announced plan to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank, calling for "intelligent and coordinated" construction despite international condemnation.
The killing, in the town of Afula in Occupied Palestine, follows a surge in violence in the West Bank, where 10 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli troops and three Israelis killed since peace talks resumed in July.
Israel's northern police commander, Ronny Attia, said the attacker was from the West Bank town of Jenin, and that he was in custody.
According to police, the Palestinian youth did not have a permit to be inside Israel.
"By his account, his uncles are in prison in Israel and this is the reason he decided to carry out the terrorist attack," Attia said.
Israel refers to many acts of protest against the decades-long occupation – whether violent or non-violent – as terrorism.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the soldier, aged 18, was pronounced dead in hospital.
The attack occurred a day before the one-year anniversary of the Israeli Pillar of Cloud offensive on Gaza, in which six Israelis and more than 100 Palestinian civilians were killed in eight days.
The peace talks orchestrated by US Secretary of State John Kerry have faced serious obstacles, including the high rate of Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons, many in indefinite administrative detention, as well as extensive plans to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
A report by British newspaper The Guardian on Tuesday revealed that Israeli troops conducted mock arrests and raids in the West Bank without informing the local population that their actions were drills, causing extreme distress to many Palestinians.
The attack came as Israel's Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz urged "coordinated" settlement building, a day after a new plan for settler homes in the West Bank drew international condemnation.
Settlements in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the West Bank "must be done in an intelligent and coordinated way," said Steinitz told Israeli public radio on Wednesday.
The settlements are deemed illegal under international law.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Tuesday cancelled plans to build 20,000 new settler homes in the West Bank, hours after their announcement sparked US and Palestinian criticism.
State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki had said Washington was not only concerned by the initial announcement, but also "surprised" and sought an explanation from Israel.
She repeated the longstanding US position on settlements that "we do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity."
Netanyahu then ordered Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel "to reconsider all of the steps for evaluating planning potential (for the settler homes) that he distributed without any advance coordination," the premier's office said.
(Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar)