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WORLD NEWS 9
                                                                                                                    Tuesday 13 October 2015

Netanyahu accuses Arabs of incitement in wave of stabbings 

JOSEF FEDERMAN                  a 16-year-old girl, was shot     today home to Islam’s Al-     Palestinians protesters hold a model of the Dome of the Rock
Associated Press                and wounded, while a po-         Aqsa Mosque compound.         during clashes with Israeli troops near Ramallah, West Bank,
JERUSALEM (AP) — Pales-         lice officer was lightly hurt.   Israel captured the West      Monday, Oct. 12, 2015. Recent days have seen a series of stab-
tinians carried out three       The unrest began last            Bank and east Jerusalem,      bing attacks in Israel and the West Bank that have wounded
stabbings Monday in Jeru-       month with clashes at Jeru-      including the Old City,       several Israelis. Past weeks have also seen violent demonstra-
salem, leaving a teenage        salem’s most sensitive holy      from Jordan in the 1967       tions in the West Bank and Gaza, and at least 16 Palestinians
Israeli boy in critical con-    site and quickly spread          Mideast war. Since then,      have been killed by Israeli forces.
dition, and Prime Minister      across Israel and into the       under an agreement with
Benjamin Netanyahu an-          West Bank and Gaza Strip.        Jordan, non-Muslims have                                                      (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
grily accused the country’s     Five Israelis have been          been allowed to visit the
Arab leaders of helping         killed in stabbings, a shoot-    hilltop compound, but not
incite weeks of violence.       ing and a stoning attack         pray there. Jordan retains
Two of the attackers, both      on a moving vehicle, while       custodial rights over the
teenage boys, were killed.      at least 25 Palestinians, in-    Muslim holy sites.
In a fiery speech at parlia-    cluding 10 attackers, have       In his speech, Netanyahu
ment, Netanyahu accused         been slain. Several Pales-       dismissed the Palestinian
Arab parties of “undermin-      tinian children, including       accusations as a “total lie”
ing” the country.               a 2-year-old girl killed with    and accused the Palestin-
Netanyahu spoke on an-          her mother in a Gaza air-        ian Authority in the West
other bloody day, the lat-      strike, have been among          Bank, the militant group
est in a monthlong wave of      the dead. Hundreds of            Hamas and Israel’s own Is-
Israeli-Palestinian violence.   Palestinians have been           lamic Movement of incite-
In a new setback for ef-        wounded in clashes with          ment. q
forts to restore calm, the      Israeli troops in the West
Quartet of Mideast media-       Bank. The stabbings have
tors — the U.S., the U.N., the  rattled Israel. The attackers,
European Union and Russia       many of them teenagers,
__ postponed a trip to the      have had no affiliation with
region. Edgar Vasquez, a        militant groups, and the
spokesman for the State         seemingly random nature
Department’s Bureau of          of the stabbings has made
Near East Affairs, said it was  it difficult to predict or pre-
at the request of the Israeli   vent them.
government due to the cir-      Netanyahu has come un-
cumstances.                     der heavy criticism for fail-
Israeli police reported         ing to stop the violence,
three separate stabbings        and an opinion poll this
across the city, including      week showed that more
an assault by two attackers     than 70 percent of the
in the east Jerusalem area      public is dissatisfied with his
of Pisgat Zeev. Police said     handling of the crisis.
the pair seriously wounded      The violence erupted over
a 20-year-old man before        the Jewish New Year last
attacking a teenage boy         month, fueled by rumors
on a bicycle.                   that Israel was plotting
The boy was critically          to take over a site holy to
wounded before police           both Muslims and Jews.
shot and killed one of the      The rumors ignited clash-
attackers, while the sec-       es between Israeli police
ond was run over by a car.      and Palestinian activists
Abdel Nasser Manasra, a         who hurled stones and fire-
relative of Ahmed, 13, and      bombs at them from inside
Hassan, 15, said both were      the mosque, and the vio-
cousins. He did not know        lence has spread.
which had been killed.          Israel has dismissed the ru-
Other attacks occurred in       mors as slanderous and re-
Jerusalem’s Old City, where     peatedly said there are no
a 17-year-old assailant was     plans to alter a longstand-
killed, and outside the na-     ing status quo at the spot,
tional police headquarters.     revered by Jews as the site
The attacker, identified as     of the biblical Temples and
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