BICOM

A number of Israeli civilians and soldiers were wounded over the weekend following five separate attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Yesterday, an IDF reserve officer was stabbed and moderately wounded by a Palestinian attempting to infiltrate the Israeli community of Efrat, just south of Bethlehem. The assailant was shot and wounded before being arrested by Israeli troops.

The stabbing followed another knife attack on Saturday in the West Bank city of Hebron, which has been a flashpoint for violence during the last year. An Israeli soldier was wounded and the assailant was shot dead at the scene.

A day earlier, in a similar incident in Hebron, another soldier was injured and a knife-wielding assailant shot dead. Meanwhile, just hours earlier in nearby Kiryat Arba two Palestinians rammed a car into a bus stop of waiting commuters. Three Israeli civilians were injured, before troops opened fire, killing one of the assailants and wounding the other. Also on Friday, a Jordanian man stabbed Israeli police at the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City, before being shot and killed. It remains unclear why the man was in Israel.

The weekend violence prompted the IDF to send an additional battalion of soldiers from the Kfir infantry brigade to the West Bank. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet yesterday that “the risk threshold has risen”.

Meanwhile, the IDF said: “The motivation and inspiration to carry out attacks against Israelis remains strong.”

It remains unclear whether there was a direct, short-term explanation for the latest attacks. However, some fear that such violence could increase as the Jewish New Year and holiday season approaches.

The attacks over the weekend followed several weeks of quiet. A year ago, a wave of Palestinian violence began, consisting mainly of knife and vehicle attacks, killing at least 40 people. However, such violence had appeared to recede to just a few incidents over the summer.