Thursday, March 28

Three people killed and at least four injured in attack in Israeli town of Elad | Israel


Three people have been killed and at least four more injured in the central Israeli town of Elad, in the latest in a spate of street attacks that have sent tensions soaring in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent weeks.

One or two as yet unidentified attackers, carrying a firearm and an axe, attacked passersby in a park in the ultra-Orthodox town near Tel Aviv on Thursday night, Israel’s Independence Day, local news reported. At least one person fled the scene in a vehicle.

United Hatzalah first responders were still treating people at the park and roadblocks were set up in the area on Thursday evening. There was no immediate comment from Israel’s police other than that the incident appeared to be a terror attack, and Elad’s mayor has called on residents to stay indoors while security forces hunt for the perpetrators.

The worst wave of terrorist attacks in Israel in years began in late March, when an Islamic State supporter killed four people in a stabbing and vehicle-ramming incident in the southern city of Beersheba.

Tensions then rose throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover. Several separate attacks in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank carried out by Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel claiming to be from different factions have killed 16 Israelis, including an Arab-Israeli police officer and two Ukrainian nationals.

Three Arab-Israelis and 27 Palestinians have died during the same period, among them the perpetrators of attacks and others killed by Israeli security forces in stepped-up army operations in the occupied West Bank.

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The deadly violence has been accompanied by clashes throughout Ramadan at the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem between Palestinians and Israeli police, in which hundreds of Palestinians have been injured. The site, known as the Temple Mount in Israel, is holy to both Jews and Muslims, and lies at the geographical and religious heart of the decades-old conflict.

The compound’s reopening to Jewish visitors on Thursday morning, after the Eid al-Fitr holiday, was again marked by violent scuffles; after Israeli police moved to arrest one of the Palestinians protesting against the Jewish presence, scuffles broke out in which police fired rubber-coated bullets and Palestinians responded by throwing stones. Two Palestinians were taken to hospital and one police officer was lightly wounded, medics said.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, praised Thursday’s attack in Elad, but did not claim responsibility for it.

“The storming of al-Aqsa mosque can’t go unpunished,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said. “The heroic operation in Tel Aviv is a practical translation of what the resistance had warned against.”

The escalation of violence in the past six weeks has raised fears of another armed conflict similar to the 11-day war a year ago between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which was in part triggered by unrest at Aqsa.

Informally, Jews are allowed to visit, but not pray at the site. In recent years, however, growing numbers of Jewish visitors, sometimes praying or with police escorts, have inflamed longstanding Palestinian fears that Israel plans to annex the area.

Israel says it is committed to maintaining the status quo, and accuses Hamas of inciting the recent violence.


www.theguardian.com

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