No end to Israeli-Palestinian violence despite Kerry proposal
By Hugh Naylor-October 25 at 12:50 PM
JERUSALEM — Violence between Israelis and Palestinians showed no signs of abating Sunday despite a plan brokered a day earlier by Secretary of State John F. Kerry to bring quiet to the region, which has endured weeks of tit-for-tat killings.
Israeli police said they fatally shot a Palestinian woman in Hebron after she approached officers and pulled out a knife. The city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is one of multiple areas across the region that have experienced a rash of Palestinian attacks, often by knife, and lethal reprisals by Israel.
Earlier in the day, Israel’s military said two Palestinians attacked an Israeli man near the Gush Etzion bloc of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The assailants fled after the Israeli responded with gunfire, the military said.
Israeli security forces have killed dozens of Palestinians, and 10 Israelis have died in this round of unrest, which has raised fears of another Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Mounting international concern about the situation prompted Kerry’s snap visit to Jordan — the custodian of the Jerusalem holy site that has been at the center of the recent clashes — on Saturday.
After meetings with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah II of Jordan, Kerry announced a plan involving the installation of security cameras at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. Palestinians have accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting to meddle with long-running prayer customs in the area.
On Saturday, the Israeli leader again denied harboring any intention of upsetting the status quo in the holy area. Jews are allowed to visit the compound but not pray there. Netanyahu did not explicitly say whether he accepted Kerry’s proposal.
The mosque is the third-holiest shrine in Islam, and the compound in which it is located is revered by Jews as the site of two ancient temples. Far-right Israeli officials who want Jews to be allowed to pray at the al-Aqsa site have entered the compound, angering Palestinians and officials in Jordan.
Palestinian leaders on Sunday expressed skepticism of Kerry’s plan.
Speaking to Voice of Palestine radio, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki called the idea “a trap” and said that Netanyahu “cannot be trusted” to implement the plan.
Maliki, who is close to Abbas, expressed several misgivings about Kerry’s proposal, including concerns that Israeli security forces would use images from any surveillance cameras at the compound to arrest Muslim worshipers.
Israel already operates hundreds of security cameras in Jerusalem’s Old City.
“Who will monitor these cameras?” Maliki said.
In a news conference in Jerusalem, Ahmad Tibi, a prominent Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel and a member of the Israeli parliament, called Kerry’s visit “disappointing.”
He said visits to al-Aqsa Mosque by right-wing Jewish government officials have stoked Palestinian anger. He added that the unrest also is rooted in Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territory and the expansion there of Jewish settlements, which most of the world views as a violation of international law.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military said Sunday that a 23-year-old Palestinian Arab citizen unlawfully used a paraglider to fly to Syria and join ranks with rebels battling the government there.
During his Sunday cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said he would attempt to revoke the man’s citizenship.
Israeli intelligence officials say that dozens of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who form about 20 percent of the country’s population, have entered Syria to join the Islamic State militant group.
Last week, the Islamic State released a video of a militant speaking in flawless Hebrew and vowing to eradicate Jews from the Holy Land. Analysts said the militant shown in the video — the group’s first one in Hebrew — could be a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel.
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Hugh Naylor is a Beirut-based correspondent for The Post. He has reported from over a dozen countries in the Middle East for such publications as The National, an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, and The New York Times.
