Israeli forces on Sunday were tracking a Palestinian man suspected of killing an Israeli soldier the day before in an armed attack in East Jerusalem amid an upsurge in violence in recent months.
Posted at 9:21 a.m.
Soldier Noa Lazar, 18, who served in the military police, died of gunshot wounds inflicted in the attack on Saturday evening at the Shuafat checkpoint, a Palestinian refugee camp in East Jerusalem, occupied and annexed by Israel.
PHOTO AHMAD GHARABLI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The attack took place at the Shuafat checkpoint.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid vowed on Sunday “to bring to justice those responsible for this heinous crime,” which occurs during the Jewish holiday season. “Terrorism will not win, we are strong despite this difficult evening,” he added as the funeral of the young woman is scheduled for Monday evening after the start of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
Another 30-year-old Israeli man was shot and seriously injured in the head in the attack and was taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, the facility said. Two border police officers were slightly injured by “shrapnel”, according to the police.
According to Israeli police, the perpetrator of the attack is a 22-year-old Palestinian living in East Jerusalem. He was driven by an accomplice to the checkpoint and opened fire on officers on duty before fleeing to the camp.
On Sunday, after a night of tension in Jerusalem, the Israeli police arrested three young Palestinians suspected “of being involved in the attack”, and blocked access to the camp, where they continued their hunt for the suspect.
PHOTO AHMAD GHARABLI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Deadly raid in Jenin
Earlier Saturday, two Palestinian teenagers identified as Ahmad Daraghmeh, 16, and Mahmoud al-Sousse, 18, were shot and killed in a new Israeli army raid in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in the north of the occupied West Bank where soldiers were trying to apprehend a suspected member of the Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed Islamist group.
After deadly attacks in Israel last March and April, the Israeli army stepped up operations and arrests in the West Bank, especially in the areas of Jenin and Nablus.
These raids, often interspersed with clashes with the Palestinian population, left more than a hundred dead on the Palestinian side, the heaviest toll in the West Bank for nearly seven years, according to the UN.
“I am alarmed by the deterioration of the security situation, and the intensification of armed clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli security forces in the West Bank” and in East Jerusalem, commented on Saturday evening the UN envoy for the Near East, Tor Wennesland, after the attacks of Jenin and Chouafat.
Faced with violence in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas called on the United States to “increase the pressure on Israel so that it ceases its total war against the Palestinian people”.
Israeli operations “will lead to an explosion and a point of no return, which will have devastating consequences for all”, warned Nabil Abou Roudeina, spokesman for President Abbas.