A woman who tried to attack Israeli security guards is shot. As Netanyahu meets Obama today, tensions in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories continue to grow. Israelis and Palestinians tell AsiaNews that they are "very concerned". For Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of ‘Breaking the Silence,’ “Anyone who thinks that Israel can indefinitely control Palestinians by force suffers from [. . .] blindness”. Instead, we must “work toward ending the occupation once and for all.”

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – Tensions remain high as car-ramming and stabbing attacks wounded a number of Israelis and left some Palestinians dead on Sunday.

A Palestinian woman attacked Israeli security guards with a knife in the north of the occupied West Bank. She was shot after refusing to stop, Israel’s Defence Ministry said, without specifying whether she was wounded or killed. 

Also yesterday, a Palestinian rammed a group of Israelis with a car at a junction in Nablus, wounding four of them, and was then killed by security forces.

Later, a Palestinian woman stabbed a security guard near the Beitar Illit settlement south of Jerusalem and was shot by the victim. She was taken to hospital where she was being treated in intensive care.

The fourth incident saw an Israeli settler stabbed whilst shopping in the West Bank village of Nabi Ilyas, with two alleged Palestinian assailants fleeing afterwards.

Since the start of October, stabbing attacks have raised fears that a third intifada might break out. So far, attacks in parts of Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank (Hebron) have left 73 Palestinians dead. Nine Israelis, one Arab Israeli and one Eritrean migrant have also been killed, the latter lynched by an Israeli mob who thought he was a terrorist.

Most attacks are carried out by young Palestinians frustrated by the Israeli occupation, who have had relatives killed or who have suffered humiliation at checkpoints. Their reactions appear spontaneous in defiance of calls by the Palestinian Authority to engage in peaceful resistance.

Against this background settler violence and attempts to visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to pray in the holy place have increased Palestinian frustrations.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who today met with US President Barack Obama, initially made it easier to carry out these visits and then, confronted with the violence, tried to backtrack.

Some Israelis and Palestinians who spoke to AsiaNews said that they were "very concerned" and "pessimistic" about the future.

A Conservative rabbi said that "Israel has no choice but to defend itself". A Palestinian said that violence will not end until Israel ends its oppression and lays down a path to end the occupation.

Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of ‘Breaking the Silence,’ an organisation of Israeli soldiers and veterans who denounce Israeli violence in the occupied territories, agrees.

"Anyone who thinks that Israel can indefinitely control Palestinians by force suffers from [. . .] blindness. And whoever fails to understand the connection between this ongoing control and the violence and fear that have returned to our hearts and streets in recent weeks, could lead us toward more severe disaster than that which we are already experiencing,” Shaul wrote in an opinion piece published by The Jewish Week on 19 October 2015.

“Soldiers, like me, are now being sent to display the uncompromising force of Israel and the IDF to Palestinians. Even if this volatile tactic succeeds in quelling the violence for the time being, in the absence of radical changes, it will soon return. Periodic rounds of violence are an inseparable part of the Israeli right’s one-state vision, represented by Shaked. In order to prevent the next round of violence, in the name of our collective future in the region, we must acknowledge our leadership’s failures, and demand that we work toward ending the occupation once and for all.”

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