Palestinians continued to clash with security forces in multiple low-level
incidents across the West Bank on Tuesday, during which a soldier was lightly
injured.
Separately, a settler was injured when a rock was thrown at him
as he worked in a field outside the Kiryat Arba settlement.
An Israeli
was also injured by a rock in the area of the Mevo Dotan
settlement.
Security sources have continued to explain that the upsurge
in violence cannot be characterized as a third intifada.
Shlomo Vaknin,
in charge of security for the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria
and the Gaza Strip, concurred with that assessment.
But, he said, there
is no question that there has been an increase in the number of low-level
incidents, which continue to spread beyond areas that have been the traditional
flashpoints for violence in the last few years.
“The area of unrest in
widening,” he said. “The amount of stones and Molotov cocktails are greater, and
in the long term, this is a dangerous thing on its own,” Vaknin said.
On
Tuesday, some 70 Palestinians threw rocks at soldiers at the village of Jalama,
in the Binyamin region of the West Bank. Soldiers responded with riot dispersal
means. In Beitunya, a group of 50 Palestinians threw rocks, as other
Palestinians threw a Molotov cocktail near Abatot Junction, in the northern West
Bank, damaging an Israeli vehicle. In Hebron, 100 Palestinians clashed with
soldiers. Rocks were thrown at the IDF in the area of Machsom Hashoter, and the
IDF used riot dispersal means to end the violent disturbance.
Rocks were
also thrown at the IDF in the area of the Cave of the Patriarchs.
The IDF
registered a small disturbance at Beit Hagai, consisting of 15 rioters. In
Kalkilya, 30 Palestinians threw stones.
Near the village of al-Fawar, in
the Mount Hebron area, a soldier was lightly injured by a rock and hospitalized
for treatment.
Palestinians and security forces also clashed across the
West Bank on Monday, in the wake of the funeral for Arafat Jaradat, 30, who died
in the Megiddo jail on Saturday. Israel has claimed he had a heart attack, while
Palestinians charge he was tortured.
In Bethlehem on Monday, two
Palestinian teens, 13 and 16, were injured by security forces in an incident in
which Palestinians threw stones and Molotov cocktails at a guard tower by
Rachel’s Tomb.
Mohammed El-Kord, 13, was shot in the stomach and leg by a
.22-caliber bullet, and is serious condition at a hospital in Beit Jala. The
16-year- old teen was shot in the head by a rubber bullet, and is in serious
condition at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.